


Teamwork 3

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Series: Teamworkverse [7]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chuunin Exams, F/M, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mindfuck, Multi, Polyamory, Threesome - F/M/M, Violence, it is dead, seriously guys don't ask me to keep working on it, summary at the end though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-01
Updated: 2008-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 12:45:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 96,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7362001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Seven gets to attempt the chuunin exam a second time. In Mist Country.</p><p>(old fic repost)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Water Country (Sasuke)

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is discontinued (which means abandoned, which means dead) -- i'm posting it for the sake of proper archival, and also because i still really like what i did manage to write -- but the last chapter is a detailed summary of how it was supposed to end. 
> 
> please don't ask me to keep writing it anyway "since i know what happens." i beat my head against that for two years before i even could admit to myself it wasn't happening, and it was a really shitty time. it's stressful and irritating to be begged or threatened or whined at to try to force myself anyway and at this point it just makes me more glad i decided to abandon it.

Ox. Hare. Monkey.

Sparks crackled in the palm of his left hand. He covered them with his other hand, ignoring the sting as a few tongues of dancing energy resisted his attempt to reshape them. It was hard work; lightning was fast, and it was in its nature to dissipate just as fast. Ideally, the reshaping should happen in a matter of milliseconds, as close to instantaneous as possible. He wasn't there yet.

Sasuke gave the ball of lightning-like chakra in his cupped hands a dubious look. 'Misshapen' was a good word for it. It was still recognizable as a sphere, but the bumps were just too obvious.

Staring right into it was starting to hurt his eyes, so he closed them, and tried to feel the sphere instead. It was still his chakra, still in his hands; his mental picture was starting to take form --

"Hey -- stupid fish, don't -- no no no!"

It was a bit hard to keep up your concentration when you had to dodge flying salmon. One millisecond of inattention, and the detonation forced his hands apart, leaving them smarting and a little singed. Below him, on the lower deck of the ship that was bringing them to Water Country, Naruto grinned and tried not to look too guilty. He was still holding the fishing rod that connected to the line in the salmon's mouth.

"Er. Sushi?"

Sasuke had a kunai in his hand in a flash, and in the next, had impaled the still wriggling fish through the gills, without breaking eye contact with the blond.

Of course, Naruto failed to recognize the threat for what it was. "Hey, you better not have ruined the hook! Bukuri-san says I'm not allowed to bum replacements off him anymore."

Scowling, Sasuke flung the fish at his head; to his great regret, it didn't hit, because Naruto lifted the pole just enough to make it swerve off track. The fish kept swinging on its line, though, and Sasuke spent an entertaining minute watching Naruto's every grab for it alter its trajectory.

"You know, if we suspended his instant ramen from the ceiling with an elastic string, that would keep him amused forever," Sakura commented as she climbed on top of the cabin where Sasuke was perched.

Sasuke snorted in wordless agreement.

On the deck, Naruto seemed to be doing an impression of a kitten losing a fight with a ball of yarn, except a little more wet and stinky. Sasuke refused to pay attention to his antics a second longer.

Sakura made herself comfortable at his side, swinging her legs over the edge of the roof. He gave her a long, searching look. She seemed to be feeling okay, but he wasn't sure that meant much. "Still seasick?"

Sakura made a little grimace, legs dangling and swinging nervously. "I don't have anything left to be sick with, I think."

She reached for his hands; Sasuke stuffed them in his pockets. "That's not how seasickness works."

Sakura sighed quietly. "Fine, if you want to be technical, I'm using chakra to stick to the boat and pretending this is a balance exercise. It's not entirely getting rid of the nausea, but it's keeping it down to a manageable level. Now please, may I see your hands?"

"It's nothing worth wasting your chakra on," Sasuke grumbled, but he didn't resist when she slipped her fingers around his wrists and gently tugged them to her.

"It's not wasting much if it really is nothing," Sakura replied with cheerful determination as she healed his singed hands. "There, you see? Already done."

Sasuke rubbed his hands together to get rid of the layer of dead skin. "...Thanks."

"It's no trouble," Sakura replied, still smiling. "Are you still working on spatial recomposition?"

"Mnh." Sasuke frowned and stared down at his hands, and tried again. Ox, hare, monkey -- the ball of chakra was a little more spherical this time, but it went unstable even faster than the previous one had. "Reshaping lightning isn't quite as easy as Kakashi made it out to be," he admitted, frustrated.

"Maybe another shape would work better?" Sakura took his hands to heal them once again. There was barely a scrape this time around, but he didn't protest.

"Like what?" he retorted, and glared at his own hands as if they had betrayed him. If Sasuke couldn't manage to master spatial recomposition before Naruto managed elemental recomposition... Naruto could already cut a leaf in two with his wind chakra; and sure, the two fields were hard to compare, but at this rate, Sasuke was going to lose his advantage, and that wasn't acceptable.

Naruto's upper body popped up in the narrow space between their knees, elbows propped on the edge of the cabin. "Dunno. But not round. I don't know about you, but when I think lightning, I don't think round."

Sasuke twitched. "Didn't ask you for advice."

"Hmm, yes -- legends about the existence of ball lightning notwithstanding, round and static is pretty much the least natural shape for lightning to take," Sakura mused. "You're working against the grain."

"I know that," Sasuke retorted. "But if I can make it round and static, then I can make it into just about anything." At least that was the theory Kakashi-sensei had taught him. Though if he kept progressing at this pace, Sasuke would have no new technique ready for use for the Chuunin exam. And they were due to arrive to the Water Country island on which the exam took place in a half-day, a day at worst. As the exam started tomorrow morning, Sasuke was starting to feel a little pressed for time.

Not that the exam would start without them, even if they were late; Team Seven had escorted Shikamaru to Sand two weeks ago, and it had been more practical to make the trip to Mist directly from the Wind country along with the Sand delegation, than to try to get back to Konoha first. Sure, no one would care if a team of genin arrived late, but Sasuke doubted they'd refuse to give some slack to the Kazekage.

Naruto snorted, pulling Sasuke out of his thoughts. "Whatcha gonna do with a lightning ball, play beach volleyball? I thought the Chidori was supposed to pierce through anything. What's a blunt Chidori good for?"

Sasuke sneered at him. "You can keep cutting corners and cheating with your Kage Bunshins; as for me, I'll master all my techniques properly. That way they'll actually work any time I need them."

"Hey! My techniques work all the time."

Sasuke gave him an unconvinced look, but didn't deign to answer. Naruto just wouldn't ever accept the fact that the only reason his Rasengan worked all the time was because he was lucky. If his Kage Bunshin was destroyed before he could stabilize the attack, or if he was in a space too narrow to manifest two or three more bodies, then he'd be fucked. Sasuke had no problem with anyone cutting corners in a pinch, but Naruto should have worked on getting over his need of that particular crutch instead of settling comfortably on it.

"Your fish is about to escape," Sakura commented innocently. Naruto jerked around to check, and rushed down the deck to keep another struggling salmon in its bucket.

Sasuke sighed, concentrated some chakra in his hands, and started shaping the seals again. "How's your training going?" he asked absently.

Sakura shrugged, hands open in a 'can't be helped' gesture. "Slowly. I can practice holding and releasing my chakra -- my speed is getting better, and so is the amount of chakra I can gather -- but I can't really train properly on a boat, so..."

"Timing still off?"

She sighed. "I think so, yes."

Sasuke hummed a distracted acknowledgement as he smoothed down a bump on his lightning sphere. The cohesion of this one was holding on so far; it was just rather ugly. The internal strain was about to hit critical, though, so he released it, opening his hands to let the chakra detonate without hurting his hands. "First test isn't supposed to need us to fight, though. I'll spar with you."

Sakura blinked wide green eyes at him, startled. "Really? Um, but if I hit you and it works..."

Sasuke shrugged, though he didn't exactly relish the idea. "Then you'll get to work on your medical jutsu too."

Sakura gave him a soft look and a happy little smile he pretended not to see. "Thank you, Sasuke-kun. But I think it would be safer if I just practiced on rocks and trees for the moment."

Sasuke frowned. "As long as you don't break your hand again."

"I can heal that, too."

"Not an excuse," he retorted, and pretended to be paying attention to the sea as Sakura grinned. "... You'd waste too much chakra on it, is all."

He had a feeling she didn't believe him, somehow. Grinning, she leaned forward, elbows on her thighs, chin resting in her hands, and tilted her face into the wind. Down on the deck, Naruto had stripped down to the waist to enjoy the sun, and was in the middle of an animated conversation with an uncharacteristically unescorted Kazekage. Not that Gaara was all that animated, but Naruto had enough blinding grins and shining eyes and wild gestures for two.

He wondered what the two of them were talking about. Apart from their sealed demons, they didn't have a lot in common. Naruto could chat with everyone, but Sasuke had a little more trouble puzzling out why Gaara wanted to hang out with Naruto. It was annoying.

Sasuke crossed his legs, closed his eyes, and tried the exercise again, visualizing a perfect sphere within his mind. All minor setbacks aside, he knew he was slowly getting closer to the trick to properly shaping the lightning-chakra, and he was determined to get there without begging for tips from Kakashi.

Three hours later, when the horizon started to darken with the low clouds that lined the Water Country's shores, his spheres still weren't spherical, but he'd had a little more success with starfish shapes. Lightning-type chakra didn't like straight lines very much either, but still more than it liked spheres.

Quiet, seated at his side, Sakura was practicing moving her chakra in various points of her body -- she said the disruption it caused distracted her from the waiting seasickness.

Gaara had been found by his bodyguards and gone back to another meeting with his advisors, and, alone again, Naruto had come to sprawl across the deck just under Sasuke and Sakura. He would have practiced his elemental recombining, but he'd been forbidden to do it on the ship after one of his uncontrolled gusts of wind almost brought the rigging down, so instead he was playing with his claws. In, out, in, out, bat at dust motes, in, out, bat at dust motes, in, out, in -- what the fuck.

Somehow, Sasuke didn't kick Naruto overboard when the blond latched onto his foot and started to gnaw, but it was a near thing. "... You're chewing on my shoe."

"Arrh. Rar. Your fault. Keep twitching your toes."

"Naruto, you're  _chewing_ on my  _shoe_ ." He paused, waiting for Naruto to realize; instead, he felt the pinprick of a fang through the thick cloth. "... Do you even know what I walked through on the docks?"

Grimacing, Sakura leaned over the edge to peer at the blond. "Ew, Naruto, I'm never kissing you again."

Naruto wrinkled his nose and stopped chewing on his ankle, but his hands didn't let go. "Oh, come on, he's gone through so many puddles, 's only saltwater by now."

"Mouthwash," she ordered sternly. "Or no kissing, ever again."

"That's not fair, I don't have any in my things."

"Then find someone who does, or buy some in Mist village, I don't care."

"What if they don't sell any?!"

"Then it sucks to be you, doesn't it," Sakura retorted, sticking out her tongue.

"...Not even a good-luck kiss?

"Not even."

Naruto waggled his eyebrows and leered. "Not even in your naughty places?"

She almost shrieked in disgust. " _Especially not_ in my naughty places!"

On the other side of the cabin, Temari burst out laughing. Sakura slapped her hands over her mouth, blushing fiercely. Sasuke didn't care much about what Temari thought; it wasn't like the Kazekage's sister didn't know they hadn't made much use of their separate bedrooms back in Sand Village. As long as she didn't speak about it and embarrass Sakura, it didn't matter much. She could only report it to Shikamaru, and Shikamaru had known for almost as long as they'd been together. It wouldn't help Sakura's embarrassment, though.

"Aw, please, Sakura-chan, this is the last chance we'll get to do it on a boat."

The look she threw Naruto could have dissolved stone.

"Sasuke?" Naruto tugged on his foot. "Come on, when we arrive we'll have to be on our guard all the time, and I know you, you'll never agree to do anything in enemy territory, not even hug."

"You've got that right," Sasuke retorted cynically. "Besides, I'm not relaxing my guard now. This is the ideal moment to make us disappear."

Naruto blinked, startled. "You mean Mist people? Why would they make us disappear? Okay, we've been enemies for ages, but they're hosting this one because they want to be our allies, yeah?"

Sasuke shrugged. "That's what they say. Fact is, they've never needed or wanted allies before. It would be the ideal time to eliminate some choice people." He slanted a look toward Gaara's cabin. "We're far enough from the shore that they could just sink us and wait for exhaustion to do us in. No one can water-walk for so many miles, especially on the ocean."

"My, my, it's good to know you're always on your guard, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke twitched, and shoved at Naruto's shoulder with his free foot to make him let go. Like he hadn't been crowded enough with Sakura at his side and Naruto hindering his legs! Now there was Kakashi perched on the edge of the cabin behind him to complete the set. Sasuke really hated it when the man did that -- which, he supposed, was all the reason Kakashi needed.

"But in this case, there are no reasons why the Daimyo would want us dead. Granted, there might still be splinter groups who disagree with his decisions and choose to take the matter in their own hands..."

"That's reassuring, I suppose," Sakura remarked with a slight grimace.

"Anyway! Come on, it's time to pack up. We'll be there in twenty minutes at most."

Sasuke arched an eyebrow, glanced at the islands in the distance, and figured that either there was some kind of fast current in the area, or there was genjutsu at work.

Sasuke and Sakura jumped off the cabin roof and followed Kakashi down the deck. The Kazekage's entourage was still buzzing around, but Gaara himself was waiting by the prow, his siblings at his side. Team Seven went about getting their belongings back from the cabin, and afterward, since Shikamaru and Kakashi were already standing with the Sand trio, joined them. Gaara was wearing his robes; his sister held the hat. Sasuke wondered if the exam would go easier this time, without Gaara of the Desert as one of the participants. Probably, but he wasn't sure it was a good thing. No challenges worth the name made for a boring waste of time -- and besides he'd often wondered how a rematch would go. He was pretty sure he could beat Gaara now... But of course, challenging the Kazekage to a serious duel was pretty much off the list of things he could still afford if he didn't want the Konoha council to lock him up until he was fifty.

Gaara only gave him the shortest cursory glance before turning his attention to Naruto, who had perched on the railing to peer at the fog shrouded islands, which kind of ticked Sasuke off.

"I wonder how it's gonna go," the blond mused, distracting Sasuke from his annoyance.

"For one thing, we'll probably have fewer rookies this year," Sakura replied, and glanced at Kakashi for confirmation.

"Huh?"

The pink-haired girl frowned, a pensive look on her face. "Well, Mist isn't really known for its gentle weeding out methods. Some years people would send rookies just so they learn what's going to be expected of them during the exam -- the teachers don't expect them to pass on their first try. But this year... I mean, I'm sure the other countries made them sign tons of things to keep the tests reasonable, but..."

"Oh, cool," Naruto retorted, an easy grin on his lips. "The kids I remember from back then would be way too easy."

Shikamaru snorted. "Sakura is right in that there will be fewer low-level, inexperienced participants. But the ones who do participate are going to be strong -- a couple might even be jounin level already."

Gaara nodded slowly, gazing at the island. "It's like my team back then. Stronger, but held in reserve until it could be used. Some villages would do the same."

Naruto gave the redhead a disturbed look. "... But there's not going to be an invasion of Mist this time around ... Right?"

Kankuro snorted. "Who the hell would want to invade Mist anyway? It's just a bunch of rocks in the middle of the sea, full of homicidal, paranoid psychos. No, it's not like that. It's just the first time they're gonna let outsiders in their borders -- maybe the last, too -- and you can be damn sure almost everyone has instructions to report back as much as they can find out. The jounin-sensei will be under strict watch, but the participants might have more freedom to snoop around. And if they want to survive it, they better be strong enough."

"Huh." Sasuke frowned. If that was the case, Team Seven was going to look pretty suspicious. If Mist Village was so paranoid, Sasuke wondered why they were even entering the alliance; but before he could ask, fog suddenly rolled up from the sea, swallowing the ship in a matter of seconds. Sasuke automatically turned to put his back to the rest of his team, a hand on his kunai pouch. There was no noise at all, but when the first Mist nin ghosted up on the bridge, he was ready. There was a whisper of killing intent as the man noticed his reaction and moved to face him...

"Stand down, you three," Kakashi whispered before anything could happen.

Sasuke twitched, but Kakashi was just watching, inscrutable, so he slowly straightened up and relaxed.

"Time for the ship to switch hands, captain," one of the Mist nins rasped out, from somewhere Sasuke couldn't see. He listened, tense and wary, as the ninjas replaced the ship's crew and started directing the ship through reefs no one else could see.

Hn. They could have done with some warning. Sasuke noticed that Kankuro and Shikamaru had visibly tensed up, too, as had a couple of Gaara's bodyguards. At least Sasuke and his teammates weren't the only ones who had been surprised.

He didn't quite relax, not with the lack of visibility and the almost tangible hint of danger in the air. There were a couple of terse orders called, but for the most part the Mist team operated in total silence. The only noises came from the creaking and flapping of the seals, and the hull, which moaned a couple of protests.

And then suddenly the fog tore like wet paper and they were sailing between forbidding dark cliffs that hadn't been anywhere close by only ten minutes ago, and loomed overhead in a way that made Sasuke even twitchier. Someone could drop straight from there onto the ship's deck -- or, even easier, drop other things, like explosive tags or a shower of kunai. There was no way they'd miss, the ship was taking up over half of the channel and there was nowhere to go.

There was a gate at the end, which they had to wait for as it creaked open, and then they were floating in a cove, where a few other ships waited. It was a nice trap, Sasuke thought. Leaving the island must get complicated when you first had to get your ship past the gate and out of there fast enough to avoid every single guard taking potshots at you from above. He wondered if the boats kept to the personal usage of the Mist nins were locked down the same way. Probably not, but finding their private harbors wouldn't be easy.

Team Seven followed the Sand Country delegation up the pier, where important-looking officials started diplomatic banalities with Gaara's sister and his advisors -- Gaara himself having the good sense to look solemn and keep mostly silent. Kakashi guided Team Seven off and to the side, where they sat on a low wall and waited for a guide to tell them where to go. Sasuke could see a few buildings -- warehouses, trading posts, other things he couldn't readily identify -- but nothing that looked like living space. Not the village yet, then, and probably not for a while.

"Team Kakashi, from Konohagakure?" a reedy middle-aged woman with a clipboard asked as she strode toward them. Kakashi nodded amiably. "Papers, please."

The woman stared at the documents with such intensity Sasuke wouldn't have been surprised to learn she was checking out the fiber of the paper for tampering. She gave their faces the same scrutiny; Sakura smiled nervously, and Naruto grinned, which produced absolutely no change on the woman's face.

"Looks in order. Come on."

She guided them toward a paved path that curved around the side of a cliff. Sasuke fell into step with Sakura, rolling his eyes at Kakashi's attempt to strike up a conversation with their unfriendly guide. Naruto took two steps, turned around, and waved wildly at the departing Sand delegation. "Bye, Gaara! See you later!"

The Kazekage paused, looked over his shoulder, and, as his advisors and guards looked properly offended, gave Naruto a little wave in return. The blond looked pleased for two seconds, until he caught sight of Sakura's tense, awkward smile.

"Naruto, you idiot," she whispered from the corner of her mouth. Naruto looked clueless.

"What?"

"Nothing," she grumbled, and slipped her arm into his so she could drag him along more efficiently. Sasuke snorted, and took the rear, keeping an eye on the men shadowing them from the top of the cliff.

"There. You're in B23. Training grounds are up this path. Curfew's from eight thirty to six in the morning. Good luck for the upcoming tests." The woman stalked off, having offered exactly zero change in either tone or facial expression.

Kakashi shrugged philosophically, pushed open the dorm's door, and started looking for their room. "Well then, children -- Sakura, don't strangle Naruto, please."

"But the idiot waved goodbye at Gaara!"

"Wha's wrong -- gghk -- 'kura-chan!"

"What do you think, idiot? Like we need to attract attention to any special link between the Kazekage and one of us!"

Kakashi's eye wrinkled into a smile, and he walked into the room, checking it out casually; Sasuke did his own check, starting from the other end. It contained two bunk beds, a tiny shower stall, and a kitchen corner, and apparently, no hidden bugs.

"A good point in other circumstances -- we wouldn't want to seem more important than we are," Kakashi explained to Naruto, who still looked confused. "Or to look like the Sand and Leaf friendship extends too far. Some people wouldn't trust either of us if they thought they had to deal with both when they only want to deal with one. But it's fine here. Anyone this is going to be reported to already knows Naruto and Gaara are both demon bearers."

"And won't  _that_ cause problems?" Sakura worried, green eyes darting to the door behind them and the window.

"Funny story, the previous Daimyo would have been assassinated a lot earlier if he hadn't managed to secure the loyalty of the local demon bearer."

Naruto stared at their teacher, eyes wide, and then out of the window, where other genin teams were walking by. "Oh -- so they like us here?"

"Oh no," Kakashi replied blithely, "the civilians here would hate you even more than Konoha's."

Naruto's eyes lost their wide-open hope. Sakura gave him a worried look and caught his hand, squeezing it gently.

Kakashi pretended not to notice. "But then you have to remember that civilians wouldn't like people like Sasuke or Neji much better. The purification wars were over long enough ago that the ninjas would be somewhat more tolerant, but only so far as you prove lethal and obedient enough to counteract the taint of your bloodline."

"Charming," Sakura commented with a pinched little smile. Sasuke snorted. He supposed it was a good thing his bloodline wasn't obvious at a glance.

"To come back on topic -- the demon bearer disappeared eight months ago. Chouka-sama only survived him a week. His successor, Mizukemuri-sama, is much more progressive, especially on the topic of alliance with their neighboring countries. But then it's his only chance to avoid the same fate as his dearly departed uncle."

Sasuke threw his bag on one of the top beds, before Naruto could claim it, and climbed up the ladder. Naruto didn't notice, still standing in the middle of the bedroom, thinking.

"The demon bearer... What happened to him?"

"Ah... We're not sure. No one really knows."

Kakashi waved it off, perfectly natural; Sasuke's instincts screamed 'lie, lie, lie'.

"It's Akatsuki, isn't it."

For a few beats, there was silence in the room.

"I just told you that no one knows, Sasuke."

"But you think it's Akatsuki."

They hadn't had news in so long, Sasuke had started wondering whether they'd been disbanded -- whether they'd been killed. Not that Itachi would ever be killed by anyone but him -- no, he refused to think that. But without Akatsuki to stalk for clues, tracking his brother would be so much harder.

But the Akatsuki was resurfacing. He jumped off the bed to face his teacher, fists clenched. Now the man looked tired.

"Sasuke..."

" _Kakashi_ ."

"It's possible," Kakashi allowed with a sigh. The man pierced him with a narrow-eyed, scrutinizing stare. "But right now that's not what you need to think about. Concentrate on passing the exam, Sasuke, Naruto."

Naruto stepped toward him, pleading and angry. "But Sensei--"

Kakashi's hand cut the air; stop; be quiet. "Concentrate on passing the exam," he repeated, more intensely, "if only because there's no way a genin would be sent on any Akatsuki-related mission."

"... Yes, sensei," Naruto muttered. Sasuke mouthed the words along with him, without any real conviction.

Kakashi visibly wasn't convinced, but he didn't say anything about it. "I'm going to go meet the neighbors. Try not to roam too far, if you go out."

Sasuke's fists clenched. A couple of steps to the side, Naruto looked about as pleased as he did. Sakura sighed, and stepped between them, taking their hands gently. "Hey... We already knew they were out there, didn't we. Now -- how about we go and check out the competition?"

Sasuke didn't especially feel a need to, not right now; but it was a good idea, and besides he didn't want Naruto to think too hard about that guy who'd gotten kidnapped so many months ago there was no hope left of finding him again.

\----------------------------------------

**First Test**

**(Sakura)**

Sakura took exactly seven steps at the bottom of the canyon where the other genin teams waited before she -- or more exactly, her stomach-and-groin area -- attracted her first 'wait, what?' double-take.

She had a moment of paranoia; but Naruto and Sasuke had repeatedly assured her that they couldn't even  _see_ the bulge she thought she'd noticed in her mirror. (She'd been naked at the time; she wouldn't put lying past Naruto, he had a personal agenda, but Sasuke was the rare kind of man who never flinched at the "do I look fat" question.) She couldn't have gotten a baby bulge in the ten minutes it took to walk out and get to the meeting point; the answer must lay elsewhere. The ninja's eyes looked normal, though... But when he opened his mouth to notify his teammates, Sakura saw that his tongue was forked. She guessed he could taste the air, like a snake. So that was one tracker already, and she hoped his bloodline didn't somehow mimic the venom as well. 

"Sasuke-kun," she warned quietly.

Sasuke nodded, giving the forked-tongued guy a quick glance, and went back to his scrutiny of the area once again. On her other side, Naruto strolled casually, fingers laced together behind his head. It had been innocently cocky as a kid; now she thought he was cockily provoking people, and enjoying it beside.

"Oh hey, I see a Konoha headband this way!"

Sakura looked, past a few dozens of strangers whose appearance ranged from harmlessly, hopelessly civilian to -- there was no better description -- total freaks. She could see Rain, Sand, Grass, Waterfall, and even a couple of moon symbols. There was a Moon country now? That was news to her. Ages seemed to range from fourteen to around twenty, older even.

"Heyyy, Konoha guys!"

Rolling her eyes, Sakura followed Naruto, Sasuke right on her heels. At least this time he hadn't challenged the whole assembly.

The Konoha genin were young, Sakura noticed. There was a tall one, but he was still lanky; the little tuft of neither-blonde-nor-brown hair on top of vaguely greenish camo clothes made him look like a reed. The second one was a shrimp, pure and simple, cheeks still a little pudgy, eyes a little awed. The third, the girl, was slender, still not that shapely; but she had a long fall of sleek dark hair, tied at elbow height, that probably indicated feminine pride.

"Hi, rookies. Having fun yet?"

Naruto received a cold, quite unamused Hyuuga glare in answer. "We're not rookies."

Sakura sighed, and elbowed Naruto out of the way. She thought she recognized the girl now. "You're Hinata's little sister, aren't you? Hello." Sakura's first thought was that it couldn't be right, she was still too young for a Chuunin exam -- but she looked to be around thirteen, and Team Seven had been that age. And it  _had_ been six years since then. 

Hyuuga Hanabi gave her a reserved look, but at least she didn't glare. "Yes. You are?" she added, with the ingrained haughtiness of the highborn.

"Haruno Sakura, this is Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto. We were in Hinata's class at the academy."

The reedy boy shouldered his way in front of Hanabi and gave Sakura a would-be suave grin. "Hi there! It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Yamanaka Inoru, and the dwarf is Keu."

Yamanaka, huh? He looked nothing like Ino or her father. Sakura'd never heard of him, but then she'd always assumed either Ino didn't have a big extended family or she wasn't that close with the rest of them, because she never talked about any of them.

"So I take it this isn't the first time the three of you participate in an exam?" the boy asked, grinning winningly.

Hanabi didn't even bother glaring at him -- Sakura almost missed the way her foot moved, just enough for the Yamanaka boy to trip on it.

"Hey! What are you doing!" he hissed under his breath.

"What are  _you_ doing?" Hanabi retorted, not even bothering to pretend to be quiet. 

"Pumping them for info, duh! -- uh, I mean. Eheh."

Naruto burst out laughing, and Sakura stifled giggles in her hand. "Um... Sorry, this is only the second exam we have participated in. And I'm sure the Fire Country ones are very different."

Hanabi scowled. "Second one? But I remember that guy fighting Neji-niisan back then, what have you been  _doing_ since?"

Sakura restrained the urge to grimace. "... Oh, this and that..."

The two boys looked interested. Oh, no. What was she supposed to say now? Naruto was scratching his head and grimacing guiltily; no help from that side...

From his stand at her back, Sasuke glanced at the kids, in a way that implied he found none of them worthy of much deeper interest. "Classified."

Hanabi snorted and gave him a glare that seemed borrowed straight from her older cousin's stocks. "Really? Because I was wondering if maybe you've just been doing nothing."

"Hey!" Naruto protested, at the same time Inoru did.

"Hyuuga, don't talk trash to our allies, damn it!"

Hanabi crossed her arms and gave him a glare that Sakura was sure could kill small woodland creatures at twenty paces. "They're not our allies. Or did you forget what the other stages are? We might have to fight them too."

Inoru huffed and crossed his arms, mirroring her position. "Not a reason to piss them off now."

Naruto sighed heavily and made a face at Sakura. "Do you think he's right? No need to piss off our allies now?"

Sasuke snorted. "If we get in a position to need a favor from those brats, I'd rather we just lose."

Sakura gave him a startled look, which turned outright alarmed when Naruto's pouty frown turned into a devious smirk. "Glad to see we're on the same page for once."

And then he grabbed Hanabi by the shoulders, tucked her against his side, and gave her a noogie.

Sakura expected the girl to send Naruto flying with Kaiten, she looked that angry; but apparently she had better sense than to use a secret clan technique in the middle of a gathering of enemies. The elbow she drove into Naruto's ribs was quick and merciless, though, but without the Jyuuken, she was a barely pubescent girl and Naruto a stocky teenager who, just that morning, had taken two of Sakura's rock-shattering punches and gotten back up.

Granted, there had been some whimpering.

"If you're done fondling children," Sasuke drawled.

The blond let Hanabi go and made a face at Sasuke, half-disdain and half-annoyance. "If I'm a pedo, what's that make you?"

Hanabi bristled even more at his carefree loss of interest. Ooh, Sakura knew the type, ignoring them was even more of a mortal insult than actual insults.

"Are there any other teams from home around here?" she asked hurriedly, before another fight could erupt -- between Hanabi and Naruto, or between Naruto and Sasuke, either or; she had a feeling that Naruto was this close to mentioning Orochimaru, and dragging his name in the two idiot boys' fights never ended well.

Hanabi's other teammate, the slightly pudgy one, looked relieved by Sakura's intervention. "Uh, yeah, two. One of them's even older than you -- I think one of the guys is even  _married_ ."

"Oh, really?" she exclaimed dutifully. "That's weird!"

She would be married before the year was out, if everything went according to plan; the thought flitted through her mind, though she tried not to let it stay. She didn't need the distraction now.

Naruto turned toward Sakura and the boys, successfully distracted. "Is the other team Konohamaru's? I haven't seen that brat in ages... They failed last year, didn't they?"

Inoru shook his head. "I hear their teacher kept them home. I think he's scared or something. He's kind of a pansy."

"Aw, crap." Naruto's shoulders slumped. "Would have been fun to have the brat around."

"Ebisu-sensei is not a pansy," Sakura corrected. "This exam is likely to be much more dangerous than they usually are, and they're usually pretty risky as it is."

Hanabi was still fuming; Sakura decided to keep it short. "Well, um, it was nice meeting you, but we're going to see if we know the other teams now, okay?"

Still grinning a slightly painful grin, she dragged Naruto away, following Sasuke through the crowd. Hopefully he knew where they were going, though as far as she was concerned, 'away' was a perfectly acceptable destination. Before they could get very far, a wave of murmurs swept the crowd, and all heads started turning toward one of the canyon walls, where a group of Chuunin perched on a ledge watched the participants. She could see a Jounin there, face covered with a cloth mask that resembled Kakashi's, making his way to the front of the group as he read through papers pinned to his clipboard.

"Huh." His voice wasn't loud, but it resonated through the canyon. ' _Good acoustics_ ,' Sakura thought, and concentrated to memorize everything he was about to say. 

"So it looks like our Mizukage-sama managed to wrangle a few concessions out of his 'allies'..." he mused; from the annoyed murmurs around her, Sakura wasn't the only one who'd heard the contempt underlining the word 'allies'. What kind of country was this, where they could insult would-be allies so freely? "Managed to do away with that stupid 'can't get to the third stage without all your teammates' bullshit too."

"He did what?" Naruto was in shock; Sasuke had only arched an eyebrow. Sakura felt her nervousness turn into foreboding. If losing one of their teammates couldn't disqualify people anymore, the second stage was going to be even more vicious than their first time. The only ways to get people out of the running would be to either scare them into giving up, or injuring them past the point they could get back up and keep fighting. Or killing them.

"... Bunch of pussies. Okay! This is what's going to happen for this test. Listen well, I'll only say it once."

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto muttered angrily. Sakura took his hand again and squeezed; he needed to actually listen, not listen while brooding about how much he already couldn't stand the guy. It wasn't the Jounin they were going to be fighting.

"There's a cave," the guy drawled, articulating as if talking to a bunch of slightly deaf five-year-olds. "You go through the cave, one team after the other. There's a stone with a secret message engraved on it. You memorize the message. You get out of the cave. And don't worry if something happens to you in there, we'll make sure to move you enough that your bodies won't tip off the next batch."

Sakura swallowed nervously.

Beside her, Sasuke gave a little shrug and crossed his arms casually. "Ibiki did that better."

"Huh?"

"The intimidation routine."

"Oh--" Sakura blinked, and then chuckled. He was right at that, the insulting contempt was a little over the top -- not that it just couldn't be natural for the man, but if he'd been chosen as an examiner, it was for, and not despite, that peculiarity. She was letting her worry about the new settings take over. It couldn't be too much harder, right? It was just the first test, and they'd gone through that one easily at age twelve. They'd go through this one fine, too, Mist-crafted or not.

The examiner started calling out teams by their leaders; when one of the guys protested the order, claiming it to be fixed, the examiner retorted that the Jounin-sensei had drawn lots for their teams; like they had so much time to waste standing around in lines just to get a number, when they were already going to stand around waiting for their turn to go in. Sakura noticed he wasn't actually giving numbers with the teams, and if you weren't counting them on your own and finding a way to determinate who was in the team before yours, you were likely to have to stand around in a permanent state of readiness. A subtle way to mess with their nerves, probably. Sakura was counting, though; they were the ninth team on the list. Not bad. There were about thirty teams after them; they could definitely have done worse.

"Let's find somewhere to sit down," Sasuke said. "There's no telling how far apart they'll let us go in."

Sakura watched the crowd as she followed him. There were some who had gotten the same idea, nonchalantly leaning against rocks or the cliffs themselves; but the rest were still eyeing each other, tense and unwilling to relax. It was the same kind of atmosphere it had been when they'd been kids, but now she could see how many of the participants were putting on airs, trying too hard to look dangerous to cover up their own nerves.

She got three other looks from people as they either caught her scent or, she didn't know, saw through her body or something similar. There might have been more, but in that case they concealed their information-gathering attempts better. It was hard to keep her hands relaxed at her side, to prevent them from covering her still-flat stomach defensively. Her tunic still looked okay, she knew that; but she couldn't help but want to check whether it was pulling too tight around her -- barely -- thickening waist.

"Do you see the other Konoha teams?" she asked Naruto.

"Nope. Maybe they're hiding their headbands, or looking the other way..."

Sakura turned around, to check whether she could find them in the other half of the canyon; nothing. Sighing, she joined her teammates. Sasuke was busy bullying a Waterfall trio off of a prime piece of real estate, a nice little ledge in the sun that wasn't too far off from the mouth of the cave.

"There's no need to make so many enemies before this even starts, you know," she muttered at him; but she perched on the ledge anyway, and bumped him with her leg gently when he leaned against it casually, arms crossed.

It was over an hour before their turn came; she nudged a napping Naruto awake when she saw the team before them disappear inside the cave, and made her way to stand there, rolling her wrists and shaking her fingers to loosen them before she pulled on her gloves.

"About one hour for eight teams," Sasuke mused, "Either there's a time limit of seven to eight minutes, or they don't mind if we run into each other in there."

"Huh. Think we lose if we get passed?"

Sasuke's eyes narrowed threateningly. "We won't get passed."

Naruto bristled at the warning. "Don't look at me like that! Like I'm going to let them."

"So why are you even talking about it?"

"Guy, it's our turn." Sakura was almost relieved. Only until she stepped in, though; it went dark and too quiet at the first bend in the tunnel, and she almost knocked herself out on a jutting bit of rock. The ground didn't stay smooth and horizontal much farther in either.

Naruto tapped her on the shoulder. "I'm gonna take point. Just gotta track the other guys, right?"

Sasuke snorted. "Unless they all got lost and failed. Keep your eyes open."

Naruto muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath, but by some kind of miracle, didn't bother retorting. "Whatever. Uzumaki Naruto the Amazing Bloodhound, at your service!"

It was dim, but not enough to make her miss Naruto's reddening eyes and lengthening claws. He started to jog down the tunnel, movements loose and strangely fluid. Sakura followed, trying not to stare whenever he leaned down or to the sides to sniff things. His body language disturbed her a bit -- the sudden, swift movements over and around the rocks, the unselfconscious way he swerved and crouched when he caught a scent. She could have assumed he just felt his teammates wouldn't think him weird for acting like that, but the thought that they  _might_ didn't even seem to enter his brain. He still acted human enough -- he wasn't on all fours yet -- but there was something slightly off anyway, and she sincerely hoped she was just reading too much into it.

She'd asked Kakashi why they were training Naruto to be more of a fox, when he was still at risk of being influenced by Kyuubi. Shouldn't he have worked on repressing all those things, to keep the demon safely locked up inside himself?

_'It's going to come out regardless, Sakura. The seal is melding them, forcing Naruto to assimilate Kyuubi. He'll have to deal with the senses and the animal instincts sooner or later -- I'd rather they weren't still associated with Kyuubi no Youko's impulses and memories when that happens.'_

She understood the theory, that Naruto needed to make the harmless parts of the fox his, so that they wouldn't be inextricably linked with murderous intent and a 'humans as prey' mindset. It still seemed somewhat counterintuitive to her -- making Naruto more like a beast so that the beast inside him would leave him alone.

Disturbing, too. Mostly because Naruto didn't even seem to realize how  _weird_ suddenly acting like an animal was, and she couldn't help but wonder how much this state altered his thought process, if he even realized there was anything different. 

But then he'd always been socially clueless, so it was entirely possible that his failure to notice had nothing to do with insidiously losing his humanity.

She could keep her worry for later. For now there was the cave to deal with.

There were some tripwires, suspicious-looking flat stones that looked like pressure plates, a few precariously balanced rocks and incongruous tree trunks, ready to fall on them. There were a few dead ends, a few strange forks in the path -- some of them overhead, that they had to jump into and climb, some cleverly hidden behind rocks, or in shadows. Sasuke's improvised torch made the boulders seem to dance in rhythm with its flickering, which gave the setting a slightly surreal atmosphere; but the traps were so easy to avoid that the wavering light made very little difference, even for Sakura with her normal eyes.

They reached a series of caves, and spread out to check every corner for the inscription. As Sakura had thought, it was hidden in an awkward corner, but it was also engraved on the only boulder that didn't match -- the color was the same, dark gray, but in the middle of a cave full of granite, it was made of much finer-grained basalt.

The inscription they were supposed to learn by heart was only two paragraphs long; Sakura read it three times, Sasuke five -- Naruto didn't bother -- and they were ready to go. So far it was too easy, which meant the test wasn't finished.

Sakura was opening her mouth to remind them, but that was when the cave floor crumbled under their weight.

Sakura had been trained for this; she didn't stop to think. Chakra went to her hands and feet -- but there was no wall to stick to; she grabbed a weight-tipped wire from her pouch, flung it up, hoping it would find something to tangle around and stop her fall. The torch had gone out, flame snuffed by the sudden movement, and she didn't know how far down the bottom was.

Her feet glanced off a sharply inclined surface; she leaned her side into it, skidded down, but the stone was too slick to allow her to entirely stop her momentum. When she hit the bottom, she had slowed down enough that the jarring stop only made her fall into a deep crouch, and not spill on the ground.

The deafening echoes of her own fall and the gravel skittering and rolling under her feet slowly died down, and she realized she couldn't hear her teammates at all. No swearing about pebbles lodged in uncomfortable parts of their anatomy; no soft whisper of sandals on the rocks; no breathing -- save hers.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled up.

She moved, slowly, into a fighting stance, and gathered healing chakra into her hand -- the only one of her techniques that ever shifted into the visible spectrum. The green glow on the gray stones made things strange, made her wonder what kind of dark fluid stained the slide, just out of arm's reach.

It was only when she saw Sasuke's body, crumpled and still at the end of the trail, back and neck twisted at impossible angles, that she realized it was supposed to be blood. Just overhead, faintly twitching hand all but brushing her face, dangled Naruto, with his eyes open sightlessly and a jutting spear of stone protruding from his mangled body.


	2. (Sakura)

_It was only when she saw Sasuke's body, crumpled and still at the end of the trail, back and neck twisted at impossible angles, that she realized it was supposed to be blood. Just overhead, faintly twitching hand all but brushing her face, dangled Naruto, with his eyes open sightlessly and a jutting spear of stone protruding from his mangled body._

She had to admit, their genjutsu specialist was good. She let the green glow dissipate, joined her hands. "Kai."

When she gathered chakra again, she was unsurprised to find the bodies and the blood trail had disappeared. Note to self : if she ever made such an ambush, find a way to add the cloying scent of warm blood to the tableau -- adding scent to genjutsu was horribly difficult, but there was no rule that said they couldn't hide a freshly sacrificed rabbit around the scene.

She wound the useless grappling wire around her hand, craning her neck to take a better look at the slide through which she'd fallen. Of course, now there was a slab of stone blocking the way, high enough that she wouldn't get any good leverage to move or break it, and so awkwardly angled explosive tags on a kunai would bounce right off and deflect the strength of the blast back down the shaft.

"I guess we're expected to just keep going and leave our teammates behind, hm," she mused -- out loud, to hear her own voice and break the oppressive, sterile stillness of the cave. She started down the tunnel, a hand on the wall, the other hand still haloed in green. "This has Mist nin written all over it..."

Okay, so Sasuke had been on her right during the fall, Naruto on her left, she hadn't twisted around all that much... Presumably, they all had to emerge at the same place at the end of the test...

Right on cue, the wall on her left started shaking. She flattened a hand against it; the vibrations were sharp, short. She'd broken lots of rocks during her training with the Hokage. She hoped it meant what she thought it meant -- that the wall was thin -- cocked her fist, and shoved her whole body into the punch.

The timing of her release of chakra was slightly off; her knuckles screamed in pain. Just a contusion and split skin, thankfully -- no break, no crushed ruin of cartilage and bone slivers. Gritting her teeth, she kicked at the hole in the wall of the cave until it was wide enough to squirm through.

She didn't need her green chakra to see; the tunnel was awash in red-orange firelight.

"Naruto!"

He was still at the bottom of the slide, standing there with his eyes scrunched closed, flickering tongues of red chakra licking up his legs and arms. He mumbled endlessly under his breath -- "Not true, not true, I know it's not true--" but his hands wouldn't complete the release seal. She ran to him, caught his wrist and his shoulder firmly. "Kai!"

The next second, it was dark again, and she was being enveloped in a bear hug that might have broken a few bones if she'd had the misfortune of being a civilian.

"You're alright!"

Sakura hugged back, hard, closing her eyes. He must have been so scared. "Yes."

"--I knew it. From the start! Heh."

"Of course."

"... I'm fine, too," he assured her, voice breaking briefly.

"Mm-hm."

"So..."

Sakura still didn't let go. He needed to feel her right now.

Naruto sighed in her ear. "I know better, too. It smelled all wrong and stuff, but even when I raised my chakra I couldn't shake it off. And all I could think about was how the guy said there was no rule about no killing off people in the exam now..."

She nodded, trying to seem casual. The last thing she needed was him feeling down right now, which would happen if she made a big deal out of his failure. "To keep a genjutsu like that on three people at the same time, the caster is probably very good."

"Heh. ... I suck. Even with Kakashi's training against genjutsu, I keep falling for it."

Sakura tried not to remember in too many details the last time Naruto had fallen for a serious genjutsu. He'd been taken in hook, line and sinker, yes -- and then the pain and despair from believing the illusion had made him go feral on the caster. They'd had to identify the man by his toe prints. It was a good thing he hadn't quite bought into this one.

"Hey, none of that. You have a natural weakness -- just like I have a natural advantage. It happens; you did a good job compensating for it. You would have shaken off a more normal-level genjutsu. That guy was good, really. Besides, with Sasuke and I breaking it, he had more power to throw into yours."

Naruto gave a little unconvinced laugh, and slowly relaxed his hold. "Uh huh. Just gonna go with 'Kakashi's training is lame', I think."

"That works, too," she allowed sheepishly.

Naruto straightened up. "Hey, where's Sasuke?"

"The third tunnel, I guess. We should go get him." She just hoped he was still waiting; he might have decided to take the situation in his own hands by now.

Sakura and Naruto disentangled, a little awkwardly, and she went to kick more chips of stone off the hole she'd made. Even then, Naruto barely managed to wriggle through, and left a few scraps of skin and orange cloth behind.

"Ow."

"Oh, don't whine." She started knocking against the other side, trying to find a place where the rock was thin enough, and he put his ear against the wall to listen for a reply.

"I hear him! He's knocking too. 'O... K... question mark?' Yeah!"

Naruto knocked back a yes.

"Huh. 'S... O... S... L... O... W' -- Hey, fuck you. F, U... Sakura, how'd you make a K again?"

Sakura showed him. On his skull.

"Oww!"

"Like we have time to waste with that!" she huffed, exasperated. "Move aside."

She gathered her chakra. Her hand was healed by now; she tried not to tense in anticipation of the same kind of pain. Tsunade-shishou would get annoyed with her if Sakura let something so silly make her hesitate. She tapped the wall with her fist, lightly, to judge the distance, and then took a step back, and swung forward, targeting what she hoped was the weakest point.

This time, the timing was perfect; the whole tunnel shook, dust and gravel raining down on them. Sasuke was standing in the rubble a second later, and running down the middle tunnel the next second, leaving them befuddled behind.

"Ceiling! Run!"

Oh, crap. Naruto and Sakura rushed after him, deafened by the echo of what seemed like a hundred rocks crashing in the passage behind them.

"Shit," Naruto laughed, panting. "I think we just ruined the test for everyone that was left."

Sasuke rolled his eyes, still Sharingan-red, and strange-looking in the light of the torch in his hand. "They've got Stone jutsu users. How do you think the trap appeared, and the ride down was so smooth? They'll fix it."

"Huh, maybe." Naruto peered at a tunnel branching off the main one, then dismissed it with a sniff that said there was nothing there but stale air and decay. "Still, if the test was whether we'd be able to keep going and leave our teammates behind, then I'm gonna kick some asses."

Sasuke shook his head and checked another side-tunnel. "I doubt it, the Hokage wouldn't encourage that kind of mindset."

"Snuff out the torch! I think I see..." Sakura squinted past the glow of the flames. At first she couldn't catch whatever it was that had attracted her attention, but then Sasuke moved the torch behind him to dampen the light, and there it was, up and through a crack, the light of the outside world. They had to contort themselves to get through. Afterwards, there was another tunnel, but a smooth, clearly man-made one, and one they didn't need the torch to see.

"Woohoo!"

Sakura shook her head, amused, as the two boys started to race to the end of the tunnel. "Slow down! It would be just like them to put traps just before the exit."

There was only one trap, but it was a doozy -- a huge boulder fell off a hole in the ceiling and started rolling toward them, attempting to herd them at the pressure plates on the walls.

Naruto didn't even slow down, just popped out a clone and kept rushing to meet it, Rasengan in hand.

Sasuke didn't slow down either, because with the sharingan he could tell it was an illusion.

Naruto burst out of the cave ready to fight; Sasuke followed more sedately, but from the way she saw him dodge to the side and keep his back to the cliff, he wasn't ready to stand down just yet. She was outside with them a couple of seconds later, squinting in the daylight. They were in another, smaller canyon, with a trio of chuunins in face masks and Mist getups waiting around. One of them was sitting at the edge of a seal pattern, and glared at them briefly as they passed him by to join the main examiner, who was crooking his finger at them.

"The message?"

Sakura recited it, quietly enough to keep from being overheard, clearly enough to make it obvious that she remembered it to the comma. The man grunted, made a note on his clipboard. "Go left."

Exchanging long looks, and wondering when the other shoe would drop, Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura went left. The canyon veered sharply; beyond the bend, a few dozen jounin-teachers waited for their pupils. It wasn't until she saw Kakashi-sensei waiting there with his eye scrunched up in a smile that she breathed out and accepted that they had passed the first test.

"Good job, good job. I'd treat you, but we might miss the curfew."

Sakura eyed the white, cloudy sky. It wasn't even noon yet. "Liar."

Kakashi continued blithely, undisturbed. "Besides, you might want to use the free time to train more. Tomorrow the risks will be a lot more real."

"A lot more?" Naruto gave Kakashi an outraged look. "They were real enough today! Did you hear what that guy said? It doesn't matter if some of us get killed--"

"It's always been that way for the second stage, Naruto. The only change is that now you can still advance to the tournament even if you leave your teammates behind." Kakashi's voice was bland, casually uninterested. But then, they already knew what he thought about people who abandoned their comrades. "The first test has always been for weeding out people who aren't suitable yet -- or at all -- and shouldn't even think of taking the risk."

Sakura stared at her teacher, mystified. "But the examiner said... Oh!"

Sasuke made a face. "I see. He said people who lose their team members can still go from stage two to stage three. He never said it was the same for stage one."

"... What an asshole."

Sakura winced, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Well... It's part of the test, I guess."

"Still an asshole." Naruto would probably have kept muttering, but the sound of his stomach groaning its hunger distracted him. "And I still think you should treat us, sensei."

He slanted a suspicious glare at Kakashi, who grinned, unconcerned. "Ah, it would be my pleasure! Sadly, I don't have any Water Country money."

"Liar!" Sakura and Naruto yelled at the same time, by reflex.

"He's not lying," Sasuke countered, hands in his pockets; and when they blinked at him, he reminded them, "Water Country money doesn't exist. It's the same currency we use back home."

When Sakura whirled around to yell at Kakashi some more, of course, he had disappeared.

**+**

**(Naruto)**

"Huungry."

Naruto dragged his sandals on the rocky path in what he hoped was a sufficiently pathetic manner. Sasuke and Sakura ignored him utterly, Sasuke focused on keeping watch in case some other Genin team ambushed them for no good reason and Sakura was paying too much attention to silly little flowers that grew in clumps along the edge of the trail.

The sight was gorgeous -- hundreds of tiny purple and white flowers cascading down the rocky slope on one side, a breathtaking view of the sea on the other side. Naruto didn't give a damn. He couldn't eat any of it.

"Huuungryyy..."

Sasuke threw him an unfriendly glare over his shoulder. "Complain to Kakashi."

"Oh, I'm gonna, as soon as he comes back." Naruto was still annoyed about being tricked. Their teacher was an uncaring, black-hearted asshole. "But you bet your ass he's only gonna pop back up after we've eaten, so we can't land him with the bill."

"What did you do with your money? You should have enough left to get some food." Sakura sighed.

Naruto grimaced. "Oh, I got enough left, but it's still not fair Kakashi won't ever treat us. We're his precious students! That cheap bastard."

"You're one to talk about being cheap," Sasuke muttered under his breath. Naruto stiffened and glared at him, but Sakura was in the middle and the path was narrow enough without jostling past her.

"... Besides, I'm hungry _now_ ," Naruto grumbled insincerely.

Sakura leaned down to tear a root out of the ground and handed it to him. "Here. Chew on that and shut up."

Naruto eyed the dirt-covered root doubtfully. "Uh, Sakura-chan? Are you sure it's even edible?"

"Reasonably sure. Or maybe it will kill you. But either way, _you'll stop whining_."

She cracked her knuckles meaningfully. Naruto shrunk back. "Fine, fine!"

Sighing, he fell back, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he followed after his teammates. There was some mist hanging around the islets and reefs in the water, and a few clouds filtered the sunlight, but after their time in the cave, the day seemed perfectly beautiful. Naruto still felt cold, though.

He watched Sakura's green skirt and pink hair dance with her steps, Sasuke's fingers as he tugged his blue arm-warmers down to cover his hands to the first knuckles, and tried not to remember them coated in red, crushed and pierced through. Sasuke with gaping holes where he should have had eyes, a gurgling mess of intestines and open womb instead of Sakura's belly... He knew it was just a stupid genjutsu, but the caster's attention to detail did more than border on sadistic, it had bought lands there and built its own little mansion.

"... Are we there yet?"

Sakura growled his name as she half-turned around. But before she could slap him over the head, Sasuke answered. "You're in luck. There's the village."

"Finally!"

The path widened as it wound down a slope; Naruto took it as incentive to slip his hands under his teammates' arms and drag them in a mad race toward the bottom. Sakura shrieked, and Sasuke threw a "Hey!"; Naruto just laughed and went faster. They stampeded down to the first buildings together; by the time they managed to brake enough to control their momentum, even Sasuke had a smile on his face. Sakura was giggling and trying to berate him at the same time. It didn't work too well. He wasn't feeling very chastised.

"Win!"

"Who wins?" Sasuke pointed out. "We all got there at the same time."

Naruto secured his hold on their arms and marched down the street. "So we all win."

"Or we all lose."

Naruto sent him a horrible grimace. "Fine, then, I got there first."

The village hid in a hollow that didn't deserve to be called a valley. It wasn't even the real Mist village, Naruto knew, just a sort of tourist area for visiting traders and dignitaries; seeing the number of brand-new buildings at the edges, it probably had never had to house quite so many people before the Chuunin exam. At this hour, though, a good half of the genin teams would still be waiting to pass the first test; the streets looked quite empty.

Naruto marched on resolutely, with a teammate on each arm. Dusty and tired, and did he care? No! He was going to get fed right now.

It was only easy to stomp through the streets when they were empty; when their street landed them in the middle of a group of people, it was harder to keep going side by side, and he had to let go of his teammates. "Damn it, stop blocking the street," he grouched, glaring at the gathered ninjas. "Seriously, what's the -- oh, hey, Gaara!"

The redhead was at the head of the gathering, along with a couple of old Mist ninjas with weird hats. He turned as he heard his name and stared unblinkingly at Naruto. Naruto grinned back. Hah, Gaara was such a freak sometimes, but he didn't care.

"Hey there!" Man, it was easier to get through the crowd when they weren't walking. Some of them were ogling him weird, but he didn't care, opening the way for his teammates.

Gaara tilted his head a little. "Naruto."

"We were about to get lunch, you wanna come with?"

Gaara blinked slowly, and his lips quirked up faintly. Well, Naruto thought his lips had quirked up. "I already ate."

"Oh. Next time maybe. Say, you wouldn't have noticed a ramen stand around here?"

"I don't think there are any."

"What?" Naruto's shoulders slumped. "Well, crap." He patted Gaara's shoulder. "Alright, see you!"

They crossed the crowd, and were almost all the way through the next street when Naruto realized that his teammates hadn't said a word since. He glanced over his shoulder; Sakura was walking with her eyes scrunched closed, and Sasuke favored him with a blank, disbelieving stare.

He came to a stop in the street and turned to face them. "... Guys?"

"Do you even realize," Sasuke said in a measured tone, "that this was an official visit?"

Naruto blinked.

"And now they probably all think you're the most brazen secret agent they've ever seen, and they're going to spend the next three months trying to decode the secret message you just couldn't wait to give to the Kazekage?"

"...Oh."

Sasuke shook his head. " _Oh_ , he says."

Naruto winced, shifting his weight from feet to feet nervously. Sasuke arched his eyebrows in a way that utterly failed to be surprised, and gave Sakura a look heavy with meaning; Sakura glanced back at him, eyes heavy-lidded and an odd quirk to her lips; and just as Naruto was about to start dancing nervously and protest that he hadn't _meant_ it, they both started laughing.

Naruto stared at them in bafflement, as Sasuke shook his head, eyes closed, lips quirked up in rueful amusement, and as Sakura slowly bent double, shoulders shaking with uncontrollable giggles.

"... Hey, um."

Sasuke made a muffled sound that had definitely intended to be a snicker, before he'd remembered Uchihas were too cool to have fun.

"Hey!"

Tears of mirth gathered in Sakura's eyes, and her giggles grew louder.

"Sakura-chan!" he whined, and then started chuckling with them, a little chagrined. Alright, so it was pretty funny. And he bet Gaara was laughing his ass off, too. Well, on the inside.

"Let's go get you some food," Sakura said, still chuckling, and since his stomach was about ready to start gnawing through his spine by now, he was all too glad to agree.

They reached the big building they were staying at without having seen any fast-food place. There was a restaurant of sorts, but they didn't have the money. Naruto whined.

"Oh, shut up, we have a rice cooker, don't we?" Sasuke snapped after Naruto's third time wondering shakily if perhaps they had hidden the ramen stand in some other corner of the island as a sneaky kind of psychological warfare. "It doesn't even take a half-hour to make rice balls. You'll live."

"No I won't," Naruto replied pitifully as he dragged his feet down the corridor to their team's dorm room.

"Yes you will," Sakura replied with determination as she unlocked the door and walked in.

Naruto flopped against the doorjamb. "I'll have digested myself by then."

The small room was untouched, traps still in place, Kakashi, Sakura and Sasuke's bunk beds more or less made, Naruto's in disarray, a stack of empty noodle bowls abandoned on the tiny sink in the far corner. Naruto stared dreamily as Sasuke dug the rice cooker out of a cupboard, imagining how good it would be if it were full of warm rice right now, and so it came as a total surprise when Sakura stuffed something fluffy and sweet in his mouth. She had her big traveling backpack in hand, and her eyes were narrowed in clear threat.

"Here are my marshmallows. Eat them. Shut up. Oh, and since the rice will take a while to cook, how about you go and take a shower? You're covered in dirt."

Naruto grumbled -- like she could talk! -- but if he retorted anything, he could probably say goodbye to the delicious sugary confection she was dangling under his nose. "Yes ma'am."

Sasuke stood at the sink, washing his hands before he handled the rice. "Good idea. We'll have about twenty minutes while the rice cooks. Get going, I'll join you."

Naruto inhaled the marshmallows at a record-breaking pace, and went to get clean clothes, soap and towel from his backpack. "I'm still hungry," he informed Sakura sadly as he followed her outside of their room.

"I could make you eat my fist," she said with an evil glint in her eyes.

Naruto made sad puppy eyes at her all along the way down the bedroom area of the dormitories and to the wing that housed the communal showers, but she only hmphed and stalked inside the girls' locker rooms. Sighing, Naruto trudged in the boys' side and dumped his things on the bench. He undressed right there in the middle of the locker room; it didn't matter much, the place was utterly empty. He could hear one lone shower somewhere in the row of stalls, but that was it. He stuffed his belongings in a locker, wrapped his towel around his hips, and went to get himself a stall.

The water was warm, though there was no way to turn it all the way up to as hot as he liked it. Naruto closed his eyes and washed the dirt out of his hair and off his skin. He had to admit he'd been pretty much caked in the stuff. But then, rolling around underground and running from a cave-in would do that to you.

The dust had gotten absolutely everywhere. He soaped himself up as thoroughly as possible, working up a thick lather. He was fully ready to do the work himself, but when he heard the other person leaving and Sasuke walking in, he couldn't help but grin evilly.

"Hey, bastard, is that you? My rice better be cooking."

Sasuke grunted. "As if. I'm only cooking mine. You can eat yours raw."

He chose a stall and opened the door; Naruto didn't let him close it. In a second, he had his own door open, and was dragging Sasuke inside with him.

"What the hell --" Sasuke stopped in his tracks when Naruto had to brush against him to close the door. Naruto tried not to smirk too widely. "I got dirt on my back, mind giving me a hand?"

When he turned around to face the shower, he more or less expected Sasuke to insult him and storm out. Instead he got a lot of silence. Naruto bit his lip hard to keep from laughing his ass off, and bowed his head casually to rub soapy foam out of his wet hair.

"So, are you going to help me or not?"

Sasuke took in a deep, hissing breath -- and then there was a hand pulling on Naruto's hair and a hand shoving him against the wall and the water faucet.

"Ow! So rough." Naruto laughed, even though he wanted to turn around and try to force Sasuke against the wall right back. Fighting right now would have meant losing. Because Sasuke was the one losing control, so that meant Naruto won.

He wasn't sure if it still counted as a win if Sasuke lost enough control to give him some surprise bumsex right there. And when Sasuke's hands landed on his shoulders and started rubbing downward, he couldn't help tensing up a little. Shit, but that felt nice. But, er. Soap as lube was probably a bad idea, and -- gack.

"Um. Er...?"

"You were the one who wanted your back washed," Sasuke growled in his ear.

Naruto's breathing sped up a little, expecting a quick nip, a kiss maybe -- though Sasuke's kisses tended to be bites by default -- but he only got more vigorous back rubbing, all the way down to the small of his back and then back up. Sasuke gave the back of his head a tap to make him bow it, and let the water sluice off his shoulder blades for a few seconds. Naruto closed his eyes briefly, wondering if Sasuke was watching him.

"... Like what you see?" He couldn't help but laugh a little, because it was better than sounding too serious; that earned him some sudden hair-washing that was closer to an annoyed noogie. "Oww oww oww! Damn it, Sasuke!"

"Stop yelling. Do you want everyone who comes in wondering what's going on in here?"

"Like they're not gonna wonder when they see two pairs of feet under the door."

Sasuke snorted and pushed Naruto's head down under the spray to rinse off the soap. "There are suspicious situations, and then there are sadomasochist situations."

Eyes scrunched closed against the water, Naruto laughed. "I'm telling everyone at home you have a sense of humor."

"Hah. They'll never believe you," Sasuke said, in the same way he would have answered an enemy's attempt at blackmail.

Naruto was still chuckling as he straightened up and turned around. "Okay, thanks. Your turn now."

He couldn't help a fast glance down Sasuke's body, but Sasuke was quick to take his place under the shower, and Naruto couldn't actually judge how much the bastard had been affected.

The blond tried to think icy, blizzardly thoughts as he soaped up Sasuke's back. He never looked very bulky, but that was because his muscles were compact, sculpted tight on a lean frame. And seeing him like that, with white foam drifting down wet planes and hollows, being allowed to run his hands all over him... Gnh.

"You know what we should do?" Naruto commented lightly as he rinsed the soap off Sasuke's back.

Sasuke grunted, prompting him to continue.

"We should go ask Sakura if she's got enough shampoo to spare. Because your hair deserves the best."

Sasuke kicked back, making Naruto yelp as it connected with his knee. He had to grab at the walls of the stall to keep from slipping on the wet tiles.

"Naruto..." Sasuke growled, starting to turn around.

Naruto cheated; he stepped closer to him and kissed his shoulder, knowing it would make Sasuke feel weird enough that he'd stop in his tracks.

"I really like washing your back. I wanna wash her back too. Then I'll feel less guilty if sadomasochistic things do happen." There was a little curl of soap, on the upper part of Sasuke's chest; Naruto rubbed it away with his palm, and it just so happened that his fingers brushed a bronze-colored nipple on the way down. "Because I feel really sadomasochistic right now," he added, whispering against Sasuke's wet skin.

Sasuke took in a sharp breath. Naruto grinned, and threw the door of the stall open. Holding Sasuke by the wrist, he stalked out of the showers and into the men's locker room. Sasuke scrambled after him, swearing and fighting with the towel he'd just had enough time to snatch off the hook on the door.

"Put that on!" Sasuke hissed, whapping him over the head with another towel.

Naruto peeked around the corner, throwing a quick glance down the corridor that lead toward the women's locker room. "What for? If they see us, it's gonna be bad with or without towel."

"... Just do it."

Smirking, Naruto complied, wrapping it snugly around his hips. He couldn't help but wriggle them a bit when he caught Sasuke glancing down.

"Hahaha. Oh yeah, you _want_ me."

Sasuke growled and reached for him; Naruto dodged into the corridor of feminine mysteries. If there were any girls getting changed, it was going to end badly. So far he hadn't seen anyone on this island that went anywhere without weapons.

Sasuke followed, making faces that Naruto knew meant 'what the hell am I doing here again?' Naruto grinned until his cheeks hurt, making an effort not to laugh out loud. Uchiha Sasuke, sneaking around a women's shower room! Oh, he was going to hold this over Sasuke's head forever.

The noise of feet on wet tiles made Naruto dodge behind a row of lockers; Sasuke darted after him, utterly silent, and they stopped breathing as a locker just on the other side was opened and cloth ruffled. Then there were sandal-on-tiles noises -- quickly, they sneaked down toward the showers. Naruto threw himself down on all fours and looked quickly at the stalls. No one, no one -- ah, feet! -- but not Sakura, no one, no -- hohoho, there she was, at the very end of the row. He pointed toward the other occupied stall at Sasuke, made a shushing motion, and ghosted down the corridor toward Sakura's stall. Rolling his eyes and holding his towel firmly at his waist, Sasuke followed.

Naruto was about to climb over the door when Sasuke stopped him. _'Idiot_ ,' he mouthed, even as he scratched a quick 'friend, quiet' rhythm on the door. Oh right, maybe Sakura wouldn't kill them on sight. 

Bah, living dangerously was so much more fun, Naruto thought as he jumped up, caught the top of the door and climbed over. Sakura was pushing wet hair away from her face, frowning, and her eyes got huge when she saw Naruto appear. When Sasuke landed at his side, her jaw dropped a little, too. Naruto grinned widely and waved.

' _Wash your back?_ '

Sakura's cheeks went a very fetching crimson, but then it might have had less to do with the offer and more to do with the fact that he'd forgotten to hold up his towel. Oops.

She tried to cover herself with her hands and mouthed something back that was probably "You're crazy" or the like. Naruto chuckled quietly and picked up the shampoo bottle from the corner of the stall where Sakura had stashed it. His ass brushed against Sasuke and his head against Sakura's arm. The stall really was barely big enough for one person, much less three. He straightened up and winked at Sakura, trying to be encouraging. It was hard to hit on her properly when he wasn't supposed to be heard.

Behind him, Sasuke watched, arms crossed over his bare chest. The corner of his towel was tucked neatly in; it gave off the impression that he could dance with it and it wouldn't even wrinkle. Annoyed, Naruto grabbed a corner and yanked it off. Sasuke stiffened and glared at him, but a quick nod toward the other occupied stall had him simmer down.

Naruto uncapped the shampoo bottle and took a sniff. It didn't have much of a scent; he knew they couldn't afford it out in the field. There was still a hint of flowers in there, common enough that they'd pass unnoticed just about anywhere. He arched an eyebrow at Sasuke and pointed at his hair, then looked at Sakura. Who did what to who?

Sakura shrugged back helplessly, frowning like she didn't fully get what he was trying to communicate. Naruto gestured more.

Sasuke snorted softly and plucked the bottle of shampoo out of his hand. Scowling at first, Naruto watched him closely as he poured some in his hand. The scowl disappeared when Sasuke brushed against him to stand in front of Sakura and reached for her hair.

Sakura looked up at Sasuke as he slowly rubbed the shampoo in her wet hair, her eyes still a little wide, a little shocked. Naruto watched them for a few seconds, eyes softening. As much of a sharp-tongued, pitiless bastard as he was, it always surprised Naruto how gentle Sasuke could be with Sakura when the mood took him.

Sakura wasn't moving, standing with her arms curled up in front of her chest, staring into Sasuke's eyes in wonder. It hurt a little in Naruto's chest that she never looked at him like that. It hurt a little more that even now she was so hesitant to reach back, even when Sasuke reached first. So Naruto reached for her wrist, fingers circling it, and gently pulled her arm away from her body, and placed her hand flat on Sasuke's chest. When she looked at him in confusion, he produced a bar of soap, and winked again.

Sasuke's amused half-smirk was enough encouragement. He glanced at Naruto, his hands buried in wet pink strands. "Going to keep watching long?" he whispered.

Naruto chuckled soundlessly. _'Nice to look at?_ '

Sakura looked at him, too, her hands still flat on Sasuke's chest.

God but they were gorgeous together -- Sasuke's trim body, Sakura's slender waist; his corded muscles, the flare of her hips. With their hair wet and hanging in their faces, it occurred to Naruto that they had about the same hairdo; Sasuke's hair was just more stubborn in its fight against gravity.

He stepped closer, slipped his arms around their waists, pulling them closer. His. His Sasuke-bastard and his Sakura-chan, all naked and wet and soapy and his.

Sakura sighed softly and leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder for a few second. Naruto kissed her forehead, a soft smile on his lips. Without a word, Sasuke poured some shampoo in his hands and started to wash Naruto's hair, startling him. Sasuke looked thoughtful, concentrated on his task, not mocking or annoyed, and so Naruto let his eyes close in pleasure and sighed. They were all touching each other, and all that slick, wet skin in his arms and against his body, it was marvelous.

"You're crazy," Sakura whispered very quietly against Naruto's neck.

Naruto grinned. "Nah, we'll be fine."

She glared half-heartedly, but Sasuke was starting to wash her chest; Naruto forgave her for getting distracted. Also, it answered one of his big existential questions -- Sasuke _did_ like breasts. At least Sakura's breasts. He cupped them and rubbed them in small little circles; Naruto couldn't look away. Sakura was breathing fast.

He listened as the other woman left the shower room, and grinned widely. "And it looks like we're alone now..."

Sakura made a face, half-annoyed, half-flustered. "The rice will burn--"

"There's a timer," Sasuke countered, and leaned down to kiss her.

Naruto's hands slid down two spines, following very different curves, and his mouth found Sasuke's shoulder again. Sasuke shivered against him and slipped a hand behind his head to tangle his fingers in short blond locks. He was still kissing Sakura, his thumb rubbing against a pink, puffy nipple.

Of course, Naruto had been so busy listening to the panting and caressing the two bottoms he had in hand that he only realized they weren't alone anymore when Sakura's moaning prompted a sudden pause in noises he hadn't even consciously registered.

A pause mid-step. Some shuffling... And then there were muffled giggles. Sakura's eyes opened wide in shock. The voices sounded young, maybe fourteen.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed warily and he climbed up, his feet pressed to one side and his back to the other side to keep his leg from being visible under the partition. Naruto grimaced. Quick thinking. He was right, three people in one stall would look pretty bad no matter how you swung it.

Now the girls were talking more loudly, pretending they didn't have a clue what was going on there, while making silly double-entendres and drifting closer to Sakura's stall. Sakura looked mortified and well on her way to getting furious.

Naruto didn't see a hundred solutions. Sasuke was already up in the corner, ready to dart out at the first opening -- but someone still needed to give him said opening. Naruto picked up his towel and reached for the stall door. Sakura flailed silently, not sure if she should hold him back or shove him out.

Naruto grinned at her over his shoulder, and shaped a quick hand seal.

Poof.

"Hey, girls," smiled Naruko as she wrapped her too-short towel around her generous curves. She tossed long, wet golden hair over her shoulder, and winked at the ringleader of the teenagers, a blue-haired girl with intricate tattoos in interesting places. The girl blushed; Naruko smiled a pouty little smile and waved at her -- for the sole purpose of distracting the pack as Sasuke made his escape, honest -- before strutting out of the shower room, and then out of the locker rooms entirely.

He was still dripping wet and wearing only a towel, but seeing as the giggling girls had to have teammates, who were probably invading the men's side right now, Naruto was sure his clothes could wait in his locker a little while longer. Smiling vapidly, hips swaying, Naruko made her way down the corridors and back to her room, leaving behind her a trail of incriminating droplets and dumbstruck male stares.

All in one, apart from the case of blue balls he would get when he turned back, they'd gotten out of trouble in a rather slick way. Sasuke just had to look unconcerned and mingle with the guys in the locker room to get his clothes back without questions, and...

... Sure, Sakura was going to pass for a lesbian, when she got around to crawling out of the stall. But there were worse things for one's rep than to have their rug munched by his gorgeous girl-self. Right? Yeah.

... Shit, he was going to die.

Maybe he ought to eat before his teammates got there, so he could die with a little food in his stomach. Naruto hurried to the door and pushed it open --

Kakashi was sitting at the table, the rice cooker open, chomping contentedly on a rice ball scooped directly out of what had been intended as _Naruto's_ meal. Well, Naruto and Sasuke and Sakura's. 

The nerve of that guy! "Kakashi-sensei!" he spluttered angrily, flailing his arms in shock.

The towel was really tiny, and Naruto had never been good at making knots that lasted. And his boobs wanted to be free.

Flop, made the towel as it slipped down long girl legs and landed around his feet.

"Nice outfit," Kakashi commented casually, and picked up another rice ball. "Maybe you should step in and close the door, hmm?"

" _NAAARUTOOOOO,"_ came a snarl from the corridor.

Kakashi casually leaned back in his chair and turned a page of his book. "And then again, maybe not."

**(The next day)**

The ferry going to the Survival Test's peninsula was full enough that Naruto kind of wondered how it didn't tip over. The first test had cut out a lot of the participants, but there were still more than enough teams on the boat to make it feel a little crowded. And here Sakura and Shikamaru had been so sure there wouldn't be many people this time around.

The second test would still happen on the same island as the first; but from Kakashi's quick explanatory map, Naruto had gathered that the island was roughly eight-shaped, and there was some kind of wall at the most narrow part, preventing people from crossing. It was alright by him; it meant they couldn't just walk there, and _that_ meant a boat trip. The semi-permanent mist was gone, and the combination of the sunlight and the spray from the waves made the trip really quite pleasant. Naruto's jacket was tied to his waist, leaving him in his fishnet top; he could see that he wasn't the only one who'd had the idea to shed a few layers of clothes -- that, or Grass and Sand's sense of fashion really needed to spread to Leaf. 

He would have felt guiltier if he hadn't caught Sakura sneaking glances at a loincloth-wearing pretty boy from Stone. As it was, though... Well, it was her own fault for being too cross at him to give him even one little kiss -- just because some girls from Rain now thought she was a lesbian, why did it matter, lesbians were awesome. She'd gone trailing after Sasuke when the guy decided to go check out god-knew-what in the shadowy depths of the ship. Naruto was content to stay in the sun and do some, um, sightseeing.

And what a sight the deck's crowd was.

_'... I'd hit that. Oh yeah, and that one too. This one... Hmm, maybe.'_

_/She'd only be good as a toothpick./_

Ghhk.

_'What the hell are you paying attention for?!'_

Kyuubi shared a ripple of feeling like a lazy yawn. _/Bored. Look again./_

Mildly disturbed, Naruto complied. Being aware that the fox was there with him, looking through his eyes, made it a little harder to enjoy. It wasn't like Kyuubi could get out, though, even if he tried -- and he wasn't trying. Kyuubi didn't even feel particularly restless, which was kind of strange to Naruto; the fox was rarely noticeable when he had no anger to vent and no potential sex or violence to watch unfold.

But if Naruto asked again, Kyuubi would only reply _/bored/_ a second time and that would be it. Like the fox ever bothered explaining himself! Naruto didn't especially feel it was worth the headache he'd get if he tried to force the answer out of him.

There weren't a lot of girls, comparatively speaking; it was kind of sad that most guys still left him cold, because they tended to be less shy about undressing a bit.

\-- Oh man, _hot_.

 _'Wow. Niice,_ ' he thought as a busty girl with a neckline so plunging it unveiled her bellybutton sauntered past. He'd definitely do her. Well, if he wasn't shacked up. And if she were available. And interested. And her teammates weren't lugging around clubs the size of two Narutos. Details, details.

_/Looks fleshy./_

_'Hee, yeah, fleshy, that's a good word for it -- uh.'_ Naruto's goofy daydreams faltered, darkened by a horrible suspicion. _'...Kyuubi?'_

_/Could feed for a whole week on that much meat./_

A heavyset guy tapped Naruto's shoulder. "You okay, man? You look a little green. Try to aim over the guardrail, 'kay?"

Naruto gave him an awkward smile and hurried off, getting the vague feeling that he'd gotten himself marked as a target by anyone close enough to notice his bout of seasickness. _'You asshole! You killed my hard-on. I was trying to get a nice fantasy going there, and you -- urgh.'_

_/Now_ _**this** _ _one I would fuck./_

Naruto forgot to berate Kyuubi in his hurry to pinpoint who had caught the fox's attention.

A long mane of fawn-colored hair that made like a living pelt -- like a tail, almost, swishing with every quick, decisive movement its owner made; and an easy, practiced grasp on a strange handheld weapon that curved around the hand and protruded over the knuckles like a set of serrated claws. Okay, he could see the appeal. If you were a psycho, violence-loving, undiscerning canine _. '... That's a guy.'_

_/So what? Not trying to breed./_

_'He's got a_ _**beard** _ _! Urgh. You've got no taste. How 'bout this one? She's kinda wild looking, too, isn't she -- and she's actually pretty. Great legs!'_

_/Diseased. She spread them too often. Dip your dick in that at your own risk./_

_'How the hell can you tell anyway -- wait, don't tell me, not sure I wanna know.'_ Naruto redirected his attention on a slender girl with long black hair in a tail, a katana in hand; she gave him a dismissive look from underneath her wide-brimmed hat and then ignored him superbly. _'This one's kinda pretty... Kinda squinty-eyed, but nice lips.'_ Kyuubi didn't even deign to reply; vaguely peeved, Naruto insisted. _'Come on, she's got a nasty glare and pointy weapons, you should be all over that.'_

_/Bah. Good chase, but barely snack-sized./_

Naruto seethed. _'Stop talking about eating people already, asshole.'_

Kyuubi smirked in the dark. _/I meant her packmate's cat./_

 _'... That's it, I'm not talking to you anymore. Go back to your hole and be bored, I don't care.'_ Naruto stomped ahead, like he could actually leave the fox behind. Argh! He needed to find someone to chat with, so he could stop futilely trying to do the guy bonding thing with a goddamn fox demon.

When he caught a glimpse of a leaf symbol on a headband, he was over there in a flash. He would have welcomed even that little brat Hanabi.

It wasn't her team; it was one of the two others they'd never gotten to meet during the first test.

"Oh, hey, I didn't know they made teams with three girls."

The trio of sixteen-year-old Konoha genin sitting on the guardrail gave Naruto a long glare he could only describe as annoyed and weary. What had he said now? He scratched his head, confused.

"Uh, sorry," he apologized, just in case, and tightened his grip on the guardrail when the ferry lurched in the waves. "Everyone says the same thing all the time, don't they?"

The one with the sleek, smoke-gray hair down to her ass glared at him, and the curvy blonde rolled her heavily made-up eyes, a smirk on her pouty lips. "Juuust a tiny little bit. It was only hilarious the first twenty-seven times."

"Okay, my bad -- hilarious?"

The tall, Amazonian brunette grunted, and shifted her spear from one solid shoulder to the next. "Mostly it's the fact that there's only two girls on this team."

"--Oh." Naruto stared at the trio, caught by surprise. They were all dressed kinda girly to him. A pink skirt for the blonde, an embroidered and flowing top for the gray-haired one, and the brunette had on very short shorts. Blondie had cleavage, and gray-hair's face was way too delicate, even with that heavy scowl. Naruto stared up at the brunette and gave her -- him! Him! -- a disarming smile. "Sorry?"

The blonde one snickered. "... I lied, it's still hilarious."

"Oh, fuck you," the grey-haired one snapped.

In Naruto's head, Kyuubi laughed. The rest of his response was graphic, hinting strongly that he had no problem taking up grey-hair on the offer; Naruto reddened as he finally understood.

"Wait -- you're a guy?" He gaped at Gray-hair, and turned to Brunette, already wincing. "And you're -- oh man, I should have known, you've got too much hips to be a guy and -- argh, wait, I'm not saying that you're fat, I --"

The guy with the long, sleek gray hair was watching him with narrowed eyes, the kind of look that heralded imminent, painful revenge. The tall girl with the spear had no expression at all, which seemed almost worse in a way. Naruto grinned painfully wide and took a cautious step back.

"...You're both very pretty either way?"

The brunette arched an eyebrow, and then she chuckled, more patiently amused than offended.. "Thanks. It's fine, I tell myself it's not that I look like a guy, it's that it's hard to look girlier than he does."

"Beni, one of these days I'm going to _hurt_ you." Grey-hair-prettyguy turned to look at Naruto, looking like he'd found something stinky stuck to his shoe. "Just for the record, I'm straight."

Naruto flailed his arms. "I'm straight too!"

Kyuubi was still laughing at him. _/Does the ice-bitch know?/_

"Uh -- wait, I'm -- I mean, I like _hot_ girls and you only _look_ like a hot girl and -- argh! That came out all wrong."

  
The curvy blonde, who'd been watching the last bout, chuckled and waggled her eyebrows at him. "Yes, coming out in the middle of a chuunin exam has got to be pretty wrong, as far as appropriate places go."

"I didn't -- hnn."

Naruto whined; pitying him, she patted his head. "Aw, poor guy. Jin-kun, leave him alone already, it's not his fault he's got good taste." She turned to Naruto, and grinned. "My name's Kigane," she said; Naruto blurted out his name in answer. "Don't listen to Jin, he secretly likes to flaunt it."

Naruto would have believed it, what with all the bangles on the guy's arms and the flowing scarves. He wore _lavender_ tops, for god's sake, how could he not mean it?

"I damn well don't," Jin snapped anyway.

"He's just stressed because of the exams, is all." Kigane patted Naruto's shoulder. "You don't look very stressed at all; are you that strong?"

"Eh. Eheh. Yeah, I guess. We went through the survival test just fine the last time we passed it. Just got unlucky and couldn't finish the tournament. It was the year Sound attacked, so..."

Kigane's eyes -- a very pretty blue-green, he noticed -- widened in shock, and her lips parted slightly. Naruto couldn't help but glance at them, somewhat guiltily.

"Wow. That's _cool_. Did you fight during the invasion? We would have, but we were still at the academy, and -- well. We didn't see any action." Kigane pouted, tugging on a golden curl peevishly. 

A few steps away, even Beni-the-brunette and Jin seemed to be paying attention, and Kigane's enthusiastic curiosity and obvious admiration made Naruto straighten up a bit. "We did. Went personally after the team of infiltrated Sand genins who'd been in the exams, as a matter of fact."

"Ooh...!"

_/What a ten colors bitch./_

Naruto blinked, cut off just before throwing himself in a grand retelling of his exploits, cautiously edited of anything demon-related. Usually, Kyuubi's interruptions made more sense than that. _'What?'_

_/Blonde bitch has a litter of ten different colors./_

_'--Kigane? She's about sixteen, she doesn't have any kids yet -- especially not ten of them!'_

Naruto could feel Kyuubi snorting in contempt. _/Kitsune saying. Kind of vixen whose litters turn out to be from ten different fathers, but canny enough to get them all hunting to feed her anyway./_

"Naruto-kun?" Kigane tilted her head and peered at him curiously, before waving her tiny hand in front of his eyes. "Helloo. Anyone home?"

"--Ahh, sorry." Naruto grinned, and secretly berated Kyuubi for being an asshole. So she was a bit of a flirt, so what? He didn't mind that. It was so rare when a pretty girl wanted to flirt with him! It wasn't like he'd ever cheat on Sakura and Sasuke. The attention was nice, that was all. "Uh, What was I saying again?"

Kigane giggled, teasing him, but not cruelly. "You were going to tell us about the time you fought those Sand nins." She poked his shoulder. "So? I want to hear the story!"

"You'll hear it another day."

Naruto started. He hadn't heard Sasuke coming; but there he was, standing at Naruto's shoulder and looking displeased. The way he scowled at Naruto, Naruto knew who he was most displeased at. Sakura was standing behind them, and smiled politely at the group, but it was the polished, "I am a civilized being, really" smile; not any kind of sincere one.

"Hello! We're Naruto's teammates. Sorry, we'll have to take him back now. We have to go and say hello to the last Konoha team before the ferry lands..."

Jin shrugged. "Don't bother, they're assholes."

Beni-the-brunette gave him a heavy-lidded mocking look. "You're just sore because they hit on you."

"You're sore because they _didn't_ hit on you. No one ever does."

_/Can say he's not female as much as he wants, he's as catty as any bitch. Too many females, got to his brain./_

Sakura still smiled politely, though now it looked a bit like a wince. "We should still at least say hello. It can't hurt. Well, it was nice to meet you!"

She waved, and turned around to leave. Naruto was still hesitating when Sasuke's hand clamped down on his shoulder to push him along.

"Ow!" he protested, as soon as they were out of earshot. "What's gotten into you?"

Sasuke gave him a quick, exasperated look. "I know what you would have gotten into."

Naruto blinked. Had Sasuke really just implied -- did he really think -- _what_? "Fuck you. I thought Jin was a catty bitch for a guy, but you're even worse."

Sasuke's eyelid twitched.

"Guys -- we're being watched, remember?" Sakura smiled, not in a friendly way. "The first one who throws a punch, I will throw overboard."

Naruto would have been alright with her warning, if she had glanced at Sasuke even for an instant before she stared at him meaningfully. But no, just him, of course. He huffed, cheeks puffed up as he gave Sakura a sulky look. "Why are you two so twitchy? I was just chatting." Now he was starting to feel mildly guilty. "It wasn't -- I mean it was really just chatting."

Sakura's expression darkened, suddenly a lot more displeased. "I assumed it was just chatting. Are you telling us it really wasn't?"

"What? No! I'm saying the other way around! Why are you hearing wrong?"

"I'm hearing that you're protesting a little too much," she retorted, glaring.

Naruto stopped walking and stared at the deck guiltily. "Okay, so maybe she was flirting a little and I let her. It wasn't so bad, was it? It wasn't anything solid, she didn't say 'let's hook up' or anything."

He glanced at Sasuke for support, but Sasuke glared at him, too.

"She wasn't going to, idiot."

"Hey, don't call me idiot! You didn't even talk with her, anyway, so what do you know?"

"Naruto," Sasuke replied with fake patience, "I don't _need_ to. They're a team comprised of a pretty boy from a strictly spying-oriented bloodline, a girl with no calluses and a lot of cleavage, and a weapons specialist flashing too much thigh. It should be obvious."

Naruto growled in frustration and threw up his arms. " _What_ should be obvious?"

"They're an espionage and infiltration team. They're not ninja, they're goddamn _kunoichi_."

Naruto blinked. "Uh -- what? What's the difference?"

"The difference is their training isn't geared toward frontal assault, but toward backstabbing, poisoning, and leading people to their doom by the balls." Sasuke gave him an irritated glare. "Looks like she had a good hold on yours, too."

Naruto's cheeks burned. "What the fuck is your problem, are you jealous or something?"

Sasuke visibly bristled, taking a threatening step forward; Naruto stood his ground. Sakura winced and quickly insinuated herself between them, her hands on their shoulders to keep them apart. "Guys, please -- _guys_ , Kakashi-sensei told me to thump you if I needed to. Remember? We can't afford it right now. So don't make me -- please -- _Sasuke-kun_ , I swear I will."

Sasuke huffed and turned away, arms crossed defensively. Naruto's figurative hackles slowly came down. At least this time he wasn't the only one being treated like a misbehaving kid.

Trying to look good for the competition, Sakura gave a little wincing smile, which did a horrible job of hiding the way her eyelid twitched in anger. Naruto scowled at the deck, and tried to make his lower lip stop jutting out. He wasn't going to be _pouting_ over it.

"...Sasuke-kun, Naruto was just making friends, he had no way to guess."

Sasuke snorted in dismissive contempt; Sakura gave a tired sigh but apparently decided not to push it with him.

"Naruto... It's okay, just remember next time." Sakura gave him a tired smile. "That type of team is at a disadvantage in all-out fighting, so they'll usually try to gain an edge before the fighting starts -- they're gathering intelligence to find people's weaknesses. It's -- no one's going to fall for a classical 'poor girl who twisted her ankle, please protect me, you handsome stranger' attempt, right? It might work in a real-life situation, but not in an exam -- we all know everyone is a ninja."

Naruto gave her a sour look. Now he felt positively stupid. They'd been nice, and they were from Konoha too, and he'd just--

_/Eh, who cares what they wanted. Got the bitches fawning over you, who cares if they didn't mean it. You're strong enough to make them put their cunt where their mouth is./_

Naruto did a full-body twitch. _'Nrgh -- mental picture --my brain -- really, really hate you.'_

Somewhere deep in his mind, Kyuubi _smirked_ at him again. 

_'Not a rapist, damn it. Also, I'm pretty sure that's not how the saying goes.'_

_/That's how it goes for_ _ **me**_ _./_ And that was all the fox-demon cared about. Kyuubi in a nutshell, really. 

Naruto sighed heavily and slumped against the guardrail, staring dispiritedly at the sea below. Being so pitiful that Kyuubi, the nine-tailed fox-demon himself, offered what could be construed as _support_ \-- in a very twisted, bastardly way, of course -- only made him feel even worse.

"... Naruto?" Sakura sighed, and patted his shoulder. "It's okay, you're not the only one it ever happens to, I mean, it's only their job!"

"Yeah?" Naruto muttered, unconvinced. "When's the last time you fell for something like that?"

Sakura twirled a lock of hair around her finger nervously. "Um. Er. I guess... Kabuto?"

Naruto flailed his arms in a brief explosion of frustration. "That doesn't count! Everyone trusted him."

"I didn't."

Naruto glared at Sasuke, who now leaned nonchalantly on his elbows facing the sea.

"That's because you're a paranoid bastard! I don't want to always think that everyone who smiles at me is thinking of the best way to stick a knife in my back. It's not a way to live."

"It isn't?" Sasuke countered coldly. "I find it's a great way to not get killed."

Naruto growled at him, an animal threat rolling out from deep in his throat. At his side, Sakura froze.

"Naruto..." she whispered.

Naruto didn't want to be distracted, not when he was still deciding where to bite the asshole. Sasuke was really asking for it -- a good, hard, painful bite that would remind him to watch his mouth for the next days...

"Naruto, your eyes," she mumbled worriedly. "I don't know why it's -- just stop, okay?"

"What?" Naruto flinched as he understood. "-- Oh, shit." He turned to face the sea again and scrunched his eyes closed. Strange, Kyuubi wasn't even angry alongside him, so why was he so -- he didn't know. Kyuubi didn't even feel all that interested in fighting Sasuke, just... Watchful, sort of, but his attention wandering away from the trio. And if the fox-demon wasn't angry, why did Naruto want, not to _punch_ Sasuke, but to _bite_ him? 

_/Bitch still needs to be taught his place,/_ the fox commented absently.

That cinched it. _'Kyuubi, what's going on?'_ Naruto still wanted to flatten ears he didn't have and snap his fangs at Sasuke's nose, and while it wasn't strong enough to worry him he'd be taken over, it was still alien and strange, and he couldn't remember having felt that need independently of Kyuubi before -- or at least never so strongly. 

"Naruto--"

"Not now," he grumbled, flashing teeth at Sakura without thinking. _'Kyuubi--'_

_/I really want to eat that goddamn cat./_

_'Huh?'_

Naruto flipped around. A trio of wide-brimmed-hat-wearing ninjas were walking by -- that sneering, narrow-eyed swordswoman he'd checked out earlier, all thin limbs and haughtiness; a dark-skinned guy with short, pale greenish hair and a cocky, lazy smirk; and a watchful, huge tank of a staff-wielding man. None of them spared a glance for Team Seven, except from the gray housecat draped on the big man's shoulder, which stared at Naruto unblinkingly until the trio was gone from view.

_'... That was it? You want to chase a cat? What do you think you are, a poodle?'_

There was no answer; Kyuubi sank back from the forefront of his consciousness, only leaving behind that strange watchfulness, that perked-ears feeling. Try as he may, Naruto couldn't get anything else out of him, and then Sakura's fist came down on his head, and Sasuke started wondering insultingly loud what was going on in his stupid head. The rest of the trip went by fast with all the bickering.


	3. The Island - Evening (Sasuke)

Team Seven disembarked on a picturesque stretch of pale gray beach, tinted salmon-pink with sunset lights and well-deserving of a second and third look, but they hit the sand running and were up the crumbling cliff in seconds. Sasuke took point, his teammates covering the flanks.

"Why are we hauling ass already?" Naruto asked as they rushed toward the closest boulders.

Sasuke snorted, amused that he'd followed their lead first and questioned it second.

"Because, look at this place!" Sakura retorted; Sasuke's sharingan caught the tail end of a demonstrative wave of her hand. "No cover to speak of. If the team who got off the boat at the previous stop ran, they might be waiting already."

Sasuke slipped in the shadow of the boulders and grimly surveyed the land. The ground was made of bubbly volcanic rock; there were cracks here and there, but none wide enough to hide in that he could see, and slight bumps and shallow hollows, smoothed by the sea. Wild grass and hardy, thorn-covered bushes kept close to the ground, and the tallest of the handful of trees Sasuke could see wasn't much higher than he could reach by just lifting a hand; he had a feeling anything taller wouldn't survive the rush of the sea wind.

The black cliff that barred them from rejoining the inhabited side of the island stood huge and smooth like a gigantic marble wall. Team Seven wouldn't be going that way; the only thing they would find was examiners and medic-nin waiting for a forfeit. Far ahead at the other end of the peninsula, faint with distance, creeping evening dark and sea fog, an unlit lighthouse cut into the barren skyline; there was no real relief to block the view.

At first glance, he would have called the place desolate; at second glance... This half of the island wasn't a dead rock by far, but most of the plant life he could see was hardy and compact, often waist-high at most; there was nothing growing there he could recognize easily. They would have to crawl around quite a bit.

"Keep an eye out," he advised Naruto as the blond hunkered down beside him. "What can you smell?"

Naruto shrugged, scratching his hair. "Mostly the sea. Kinda nasty."

Well, that was unhelpful. Sasuke supposed that with the sea wind Naruto's sense of smell would only be of use if something got between them and the beach.

There was enough open space around them to get advance warning if anything moved, so he let his sharingan fade for the moment. "Sakura, see anything edible?"

Sakura tucked a lock of windblown pink hair behind her ear. "There might be berries -- show them to me before you eat any, though. Edible roots, maybe. I think we'll have to make do with meat -- birds, and rabbits if there are any. The biggest mammals around here will probably be rodents. Snakes, perhaps..."

"Ew. Lizards too?" Naruto replied with a chuckle.

Sakura leaned forward to see past Sasuke and rolled her eyes at the blond. "Yes, and snails and insects, if we have to. Just show them to me first, in case they're venomous."

"Oh well," Naruto said philosophically. "Snail, shellfish, it's kind of the same, isn't it?"

"Yes, and bad shellfish can kill you."

Sasuke tapped on the rock between his feet to remind them he was still there, ending the banter. "You studied the flora and fauna before we came, right?"

"Yes," Sakura answered as she pushed a stubborn lock of hair behind her ear again, "but I could only find info on what's on the continental coast. It seems logical that lots of bird and fish species will be the same on the archipelago, but as for the rest, it's hard to tell. There are certainly going to be bad surprises."

"Oh wow, _surprises_." Naruto crossed his hands behind his head and grinned guilelessly. "Blah-blah-blah steal tokens off people, blah-blah-blah fight other teams as you haul ass to that big tower over there, blah-blah-blah the cute squirrels can kill you -- only this time it's an ISLAND of death. Yeah, I'm surprised."

Sakura reached around Sasuke's back to smack the blond over the head. Sasuke sighed. "If you two are _done_... What first? Look for our first targets? Food? Shelter?"

"Water," Naruto answered instantly; Sasuke arched an eyebrow, and then frowned when he caught sight of his face. The blond looked strangely thoughtful, his eyes unfocused. "Kyuubi says fresh water. Prey will come on its own."

Sasuke frowned, and Sakura moved her weight from one foot to the other one restlessly and smiled, trying to hide her discomfort. "Ah... I suppose that's a good suggestion," she said, a little stiff. "We could deal without food a lot longer than without water. But is there a stream out here? They did say nothing would come through the black wall; will there be sources on this side? It's closer to sea level..."

"There might be pools of rainwater," Sasuke replied, frowning as he thought of their next move. "But how to find that..."

"Hey, let's look where birds land, they gotta know."

Sasuke scanned the sky, but the only birds he could see were gulls nesting on the cliffs. "We need to move anyway. Where to? Straight to the tower? Stay on the coast?"

"The sea limits our escape routes," Sakura replied. "It would take a lot longer to get to the tower as well."

"Yeah, but if we get too far from the sea and there's nothing to eat inland then we'll be fucked. At least we know there's fish and shrimpy things in the water."

"So let's follow the coast from a distance," Sasuke decided. It was a good compromise. He shifted his weight forward; Naruto started moving with him, but Sakura didn't.

"Um, Naruto?"

That was her 'I think we have to talk' voice; Sasuke squatted to keep out of sight and looked over his shoulder at her. Surprised, Naruto stood in full sight a second longer before he followed suit.

"Uh -- yeah?"

She let out a sigh and looked up at the blond. "You've been, um, communing a lot with Kyuubi recently..."

Naruto winced and gave her a vaguely nervous laugh. "Ah, yeah, I guess. I don't know what's up, really, maybe he doesn't wanna miss the incoming blood and gore."

Flustered, Sakura tugged her hair back again -- the wind pushed it free the next second -- and gave Naruto a frustrated look. "But he didn't -- say anything?"

"Urgh! He says way too much, you mean. But it's nothing interesting."

Sakura didn't look reassured. Sasuke wasn't, either. But it was visible that Naruto didn't want to talk about it -- and he looked embarrassed and annoyed more than guilty and afraid, so Sasuke thought they could afford not to push.

"Is he trying to take over?" he asked bluntly, to confirm.

Naruto twitched, startled, and waved his hands in insistent denial. "What? No! It's just peanut gallery stuff. And he wanted to eat some guy's cat, can you believe that?"

Sasuke blinked. The fearsome and terrible Kyuubi no Youko, Scourge of the Fire Country... chasing cats. "... _Huh_."

"But that's it, really. He hasn't been pushing at all."

"Okay." Sasuke activated his sharingan and scanned the rocky plain around them; nothing moved but grass and dust and the wind. "That's good enough for now. Warn us if it changes," he added, and started to move toward lower ground where they wouldn't have to crouch quite so much. They really couldn't afford to waste time to grill him right now. "Let's find water if we can, and shelter before it's dark. Tomorrow we start moving early."

Sakura still didn't seem entirely reassured, but she didn't protest, crawling through the reeds and thistle bushes after him. Naruto followed on her heels, and Sasuke pretended not to notice the easy grace with which he moved on all fours.

+

**Night**

**(Sakura)**

She liked the bridge. It was her bridge -- their bridge. It was where she waited, had always waited, would always wait, because if she waited long enough they would come to find her and be together again. It was a bridge of promises. She liked the color of the pillars, too, rust-red, warm but not shocking, and the arches overhead that looked like temple gates. The trees around were a hundred shades of green, so alive, rustling in the wind, offering patches of gentle shadows, and water ran underneath in a clean, sparkling stream of clear blue.

She liked waiting there. It was restful. When she was rested enough, she would (come out wake up) go find them on her own, but for now it was nice.

Then he came to find her but it was weird. He wasn't on the bridge. They were supposed to come on the bridge, unless they came up on the arches. _Hey_ , he said, standing on the water, and she stared in confusion. The river was for (fish water chakra life) other things.

 _You're not in the right place_ , she said. And he was making the river a little weird, a thin trail of gold-rust-red trailing downstream like a ribbon. It was pretty, though, like liquid fire in the middle of all the sky greens and spring blues.

 _Weren't you waiting for me?_ he said. He was tall and he was strong, wide shoulder, corded muscles, loose-jointed gait. And he was blond. Rusty? Blond. She'd been waiting for him. Him and SasukeInoKakashiMomDad, but they'd come too.

 _But you're in the river_ , she explained, very seriously. _You can't be in the river_. Because he couldn't. It wasn't a people place.

Then he grinned at her like a little sun and he held out his (paw) (claws) hand. _So pull me up. You're strong, aren't you?_

And she wanted to say she wasn't, but then she remembered she was. So she grumbled (smiled back) and held out her hand and his eyes were liquid fire and she woke up.

Sakura tried to gather her memories before the dream evaporated into meaningless wisps. It frayed faster the harder she tried, though, and in the end she was left with the vague image of a bridge, a feeling like something not in its place, and a question she wasn't sure how to answer. _'Did I take his hand?'_ She couldn't say. 

So strange. Pleasant on the surface, but a little eerie, too... Just like night on this island, with the darkness of an almost moonless night and animal calls in the distance that only managed to highlight the unnerving silence. Sakura wouldn't be going back to sleep just yet.

It was pitch black in the little hollow they had chosen to camp, and there was barely enough space for two people, but they'd been taking turns keeping watch, and she had the last slot. Naruto had been on watch first, and Sasuke next; someone should have been beside her, but when she stretched her arms, the blanket was cold and there was no one to bump into.

Where were they? Squinting, she pushed her blanket aside and crawled to the mouth of the shelter they'd made, with dried, thorny bushes for walls and a camo-patterned cloth stretched overhead for a roof.

There wasn't much more light outside, but she could still see the edge of someone's body, a blacker shadow than the rest.

"Awake?"

Sasuke. She relaxed. That was one of them. "Ah, yes... I had a dream..."

"Bad?" Sasuke asked quietly, and she imagined a little I'm-not-concerned-really frown on his face to go with his tone.

"Just weird. Something about a red bridge. And Naruto." She paused, frowned a little. Maybe not Naruto... And that reminded her. "Where is he, by the way?"

"I don't know. Around." Sasuke gave a short sigh of vague annoyance. "Go back to sleep," he advised. Sakura shook her head.

"I don't think I can yet." She crawled out of the shelter, squinting in the dark. It was cold, so close to the sea.

The Sasuke-shadow leaned back; her memory provided the image of the rock he was probably sitting on, a vaguely couch-shaped stone, but she was still disoriented enough to have a hard time judging distances. The terrain was tricky and she didn't remember where all the ankle-breaking cracks were. She stayed down in a crouch, feeling around with her hand. Sasuke nudged her with his foot, and she leaned on his knee to straighten up, shivering a little.

"Did he say where he was going?"

She tried to find a comfortable seat on Sasuke's rock. He didn't move away, so she leaned against his side tentatively, and shivered at his warmth. She sort of wished he would wrap an arm around her, but Sasuke would probably refuse to compromise his mobility more than he already had.

Something was sniffing her neck.

"Gah!" She elbowed back, stumbling off the rock and whirling around.

From the little puffs of breath up and down the back of her head, she'd been expecting some kind of predator, maybe a wild cat, but her palm bumped against a human cheek. But then there was a yip of pain, and then a growl, and what kind of human made those noises -- _oh_. 

The realization came simultaneously with Sasuke's annoyed whisper. "Naruto, cut that out already."

She crouched against thorny bushes, eyes wide and still not seeing much of anything. Oh -- there, a shape, perched on the back of Sasuke's rocky seat. "Ah -- Naruto? Sorry -- you could have warned me!"

He made a strange grumpy half-growl and leaned back in to sniff some more, close enough for her to catch a faint glimmer of white in his eyes. She wasn't sure how he managed to stretch forward that far without tumbling face down off the rock.

"... Naruto...?"

"Don't bother. He's sleepwalking," Sasuke confirmed with an irritated sigh.

"...Oh." Sakura shivered, though she didn't move away. Well, at least it sounded like she wasn't the only one he'd done that to.

Naruto slunk off his rock with animal grace, making her tense up, and then he just bypassed her and disappeared between the bushes, barely ruffling the leaves at all.

"...Brr." Sakura rubbed her arms, attempting to warm herself up. Sasuke settled himself back in his seat, making her realize that he'd tensed up too. She bit her lip, worried. "It's kind of..."

"Yeah," Sasuke said. "Not the best time to roam."

He nudged her with his foot, and she followed his leg back to his seat, grateful for the offer.

"No, I mean -- creepy?"

She didn't need to see to know that Sasuke was frowning at her.

"... Listen, I know it's not Naruto's fault, but -- it makes me nervous, you know? It's not Naruto -- it's not even Kyuubi..."

Sasuke snorted. "I'd rather he'd be like that than like Kyuubi. The way he is now, he might cross paths with someone he shouldn't, but if he were Kyuubi, he'd go looking for them."

Sighing, Sakura conceded the point. "Well, yes, but ... I can't even tell if he's thinking at all when he's like that." She bowed her head, fingers tangling and knotting on her lap. "It's almost like there's no one home. It's _creepy_. And I think -- I don't know -- when Jiraiya-sama said Naruto's seal wasn't going to cause problems -- I mean, that it would be a little inconvenient, but otherwise okay..." 

Sasuke didn't say anything, waiting for her to finish. She did so in a whisper, so quiet she barely heard herself.

"Sometimes I'm not sure he was telling the truth."

"...Hn."

Sasuke was silent for a few minutes, and Sakura huddled against the rock at her back to get out of the cold sea wind as she waited.

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't know. He said it was fine to the councilmen, but, you know..." Jiraiya and Kakashi hadn't seen anything wrong about lying to anyone but Tsunade about Team Seven's experiments with the chakra pipeline. So just because he'd waved off Sakura and Sasuke's concerns regarding the seal...

"He'd have told Naruto."

Sakura bit her lip. Sasuke's tone was decisive, but then again he rarely allowed himself to sound unsure. And she didn't know Jiraiya that well; he was more secretive than his loud flashiness and frank words hinted at, and who knew whether he wouldn't hide some things for Naruto's own good... But if Kakashi knew anything about that, he would have told them. He didn't believe in sparing his students.

Naruto had been known to fail to mention some things to his teammates if he believed it would worry them too much, but she didn't want to go there. He'd said nothing was wrong -- he might have tried to downplay things, but he wouldn't outright lie to them.

"You're right, I guess. I just... It really is creepy," she finished lamely. "He hasn't been doing it much since we moved in together -- maybe two times? I didn't expect him to start again in the middle of the test."

"... Huh." Sasuke sounded like he was scowling. "... Maybe the stress," he muttered, but he didn't sound entirely convinced. "He was doing it more when he lived with me. New surroundings, perhaps."

Sakura didn't reply.

She was cold, and tired, but Sasuke was warm and she still felt unsettled; it was hard to summon the determination to tear herself away from him and go back to sleep. She'd almost mustered up the resolve when an animal yowled somewhere close by. She slipped off the rock into a crouch and went still.

"...Sasuke-kun?"

Leafy thickets rustled wildly as a big predator gave chase to something. Sakura was pretty sure it was Naruto -- the island just didn't have the ability to support many predators bigger than a coyote at most -- but pretty sure wasn't a hundred percent sure, and she wouldn't be surprised if the Mist ninjas had stuffed it full of exotic beasts for the occasion.

There were snuffling sounds, and a faint, grouchy growl, and dry grass crunched their way. At her side, Sasuke relaxed slowly. "... Idiot. That's discreet."

Squinting, she caught sight of Naruto's shape. He ambled toward her and nuzzled her shoulder, and then slumped between her and Sasuke, his head propped up on her knee. "Uh -- Naruto?"

No reply. Wincing, she tried to find a comfortable position without dislodging him. Sasuke had no such compunction, and shoved Naruto's ass off his foot remorselessly. Naruto growled and snapped his teeth at him, and then slumped on them again, stubborn.

Sakura smothered a chuckle in her hand, only slightly nervous. That was such a Naruto attitude, even if the behavior was strange. And it was dark enough that she didn't have to watch the disturbing lack of expression on his face. It was still a way to signify affection. Gently, she petted his head; he sighed, wriggled a little, his cheek on her lap, and went still. Sakura combed his spikes with her fingers.

"You'll need a haircut soon," she mused, brushing long bangs away from his forehead.

Naruto sighed contentedly and buried his nose in her lap.

"...That does it, he's totally Naruto."

Sasuke made a little amused noise. "Like there was any doubt." He nudged Naruto's body with his foot again, but Naruto shifted his weight so that his hip crushed Sasuke's toes.

Sakura's chuckle was cut off by a yawn.

"He's done wandering," Sasuke remarked. "Go to bed."

"Fine, fine. Perhaps he'll join me and stay put..." Sakura started maneuvering to free herself. Naruto grumbled, making himself heavier, but she was cold, tired and sitting on pointy rocks, and she didn't want to deal with it any longer. "Goodnight, Sasuke-kun."

"Mmh. 'Night."

She crawled back in their shelter, burrowed under the blankets, and shivered. But a minute later a warm body crawled in after her and curled up against her back. It didn't take her long to go back to sleep.

She dreamed of the man in the river again, but the water was cold like sea winds and she didn't want him making a mess on her bridge, so she went and dreamed somewhere else.

+

**(Naruto)**

"You're awake, aren't you."

Naruto grunted an affirmative before he could think better of it. He blinked in the dark as he realized his mistake, and then groaned and let his head fall back on Sasuke's foot.

"How long?"

He sighed when Sasuke bounced his toes a little, making Naruto's head move. Naruto should have stayed in the shelter with Sakura instead of coming back out to listen to the night. He'd been comfortable with her, spooned against her back. Well, physically so.

"... Dunno. A while. Kinda." The words felt strange, tongue too thick, jaw a little too tense. At least it wasn't gibberish; fifteen minutes ago, it would have been. Even now making whole sentences seemed like a hassle.

Sasuke didn't push, of course. Naruto sighed and closed his eyes. He sort of wished he would. But the day Sasuke grilled him on his little feelings... Hah.

It was so quiet now that they were alone. And moving away from Sakura did nothing to stop him thinking and allow him to sleep.

"Hey Sasuke..."

"Hm?"

"Is it really creepy?"

Sasuke, of course, didn't as a rule spare Naruto's feelings any more than he asked Naruto to share them. "Yeah."

Naruto hunched a little. _'Creepy_.' Even if Sasuke didn't care much either way, the word still stung. 

It hadn't been like an on-off switch, between him and the weird fox-mind, more like a sliding scale. He'd heard and registered most of the conversation -- he just hadn't understood the implications right away. It hadn't hit until he was curled against Sakura's back.

He sighed; Sasuke kicked him lightly in the kidneys. Well, lightly for Sasuke. Naruto lifted his head and glared in the approximate direction of his face. "Ow. What the hell?"

"What's the use of working out a schedule if you won't sleep when it's your turn?" Sasuke grouched. "Go get some rest already."

"I'm not tired."

"Liar."

"I'm not!"

"You are. You're distracting me, too."

Naruto made a noise of indignation. "You're the one talking to me! I'd be quiet if you weren't all 'it's chatty hour' or something. Do you want me to go back to Sakura that bad?"

Naruto hadn't really intended to say that -- hadn't intended to even mention her, because then it reminded him that it wasn't just the tent he didn't feel like returning to. Guilt closed his throat.

It took him several seconds to notice Sasuke hadn't answered, was still suspiciously quiet. Naruto pushed himself upright with his hands and blinked. Squinting, he could see the pale oval of Sasuke's face, just enough detail to realize Sasuke was staring at him right back.

"... Heh." He laughed, slightly nervous. "Almost looks like you're jealous." He regretted the words as soon as they were out; there were shittier things to say to someone you were in a three-way relationship with, but not a lot.

Sasuke's voice turned frosty. "Shut up."

Naruto had had the vague thought that maybe Sasuke wanted to be the one in the tent with her, because if Naruto had been sitting out in the cold while his teammates were all cozy and asleep, that's where he should have wanted to be, too. He hadn't been serious, though -- Sasuke was so haughty and emotionally constipated that accusing him of jealousy always got a twinge of response, even when it had nothing to do with anything.

But that reaction meant Naruto was right.

And wrong, too -- he knew that suddenly, something in the pitch of Sasuke's voice, the precise nuance of his frustration. It wasn't Naruto Sasuke was jealous of.

"... Oh. Seriously?"

"That meant no, retard. Now go back inside, you're bothersome."

Somehow it wasn't very convincing when Sasuke sounded vaguely wounded.

Naruto sat on the ground in silence for a minute, trying to figure out what to do. He'd never been exceedingly sensitive, and it was a little strange to think that Sasuke would be jealous of Sakura over him. Maybe he'd misunderstood. And even if he hadn't, how was he supposed to fix it? He wasn't in a mood to fix anything.

Now he felt even shittier for threatening to go back to Sakura. A bit alarmed too -- Sasuke just _had_ to love Sakura. He _couldn't_ not love her -- the thought of how much it would hurt her made Naruto sick to his stomach...

But he didn't know how to say that without making a bigger mess of things -- the wrong words would make Sasuke really think that Sakura mattered more than him to Naruto -- and there was something else Naruto should say first anyway. So he blurted it out, before he could overthink everything some more. "I'm sorry."

"...About what?"

"Just... Shouldn't have said that."

Sasuke didn't ask 'That what?'; Naruto relaxed and laughed weakly. He couldn't be that angry if he wasn't forcing Naruto to give his apology in excruciating detail.

"I'm an ass, yeah?"

Sasuke snorted. "Yeah." There was a moment of silence. "...At least you're in good company."

Naruto's smile grew a little less shaky. An acknowledgement that Sasuke too behaved like an ass on occasion, so Naruto's own lapses weren't too surprising, was worth a dozen formal 'Apology accepted.'

But he didn't have a clue how to broach the 'How jealous of her are you exactly' topic. What if he pissed Sasuke off and then the bastard felt even more isolated? What if Sakura woke up and overheard? What if ...?

... What he really wanted to ask was whether Sasuke was in love with Sakura. But it wasn't his place -- Sasuke should tell Sakura, or Sakura should hint, or -- whatever, Naruto didn't have the right to ask, not that the bastard would ever answer him.

Maybe he wasn't in love with Sakura, not yet -- or maybe he was, who knew, he was king of denial -- but Naruto had eyes and he could see the tenderness, and the growing reciprocity in the way he touched her shoulder, brushed his lips against her hair. But asking point blank was guaranteed to trigger the bastard's amazing stonewalling capacity and delay even more his and Sakura's situation.

What Naruto really, really wondered, was whether Sasuke was in love with _him_. Except, in a way, he really didn't want to ask.

The thought made him feel strange. Their bond was unbreakable, deeper than anything, but at times it seemed too painful and weird to claim the name of love. It was just... there. They belonged with each other, wouldn't be complete, wouldn't stand upright properly on their own. The annoyance and the fights were real enough, but the way they could -- and would -- tear each other to shreds inside and out didn't change a thing. In a way 'love' seemed too ordinary.

And in another way, if Sasuke declared himself to him, it didn't matter that they were totally (non-girlishly) _soulmates_ , or they'd been sleeping together for months, Naruto would probably fluster himself into an early grave, by way of blurting out something dumb and catching a fist-shaped backlash in the face.

At least there was probably zero risk of Naruto having to figure out what the hell he should do with an armful of red roses.

"Your brain is going to overheat."

Naruto blinked, startled out of his thoughts. "... _Hey_!" He glared up, not that it mattered much. Sasuke could talk about Naruto being in good company -- so far the Uchiha still had the unbroken record of assholishness across the whole of Konoha. Naruto wouldn't be surprised if he died at eighty in his bed still holding the title. 

"... It's not gonna overheat in this weather anyway," Naruto muttered.

A cold gust of wind ran through the island, giving him all the excuse he needed to climb on the rock Sasuke used as a seat and lean against his side. Naruto hugged his knees to his chest and stared straight ahead, pretending the contact was a total accident.

Sasuke nudged him in the ribs with his elbow, but the lack of hard shove to the ground was all the confirmation Naruto needed.

"What is this, 'lean on Sasuke' night?"

"Oh shut up, it's your fault you're warm."

Sasuke made an irritated noise, but refrained from otherwise counterattacking. Naruto relaxed with a slow sigh.

He was sure now; Sasuke liked him -- perhaps not in a heart-aflutter way, Sasuke would never ever let that show, but at least enough to allow him to mope and sulk without kicking him into shape, and even enough to be nice, in a stealthy Sasuke way. And his moments of Sakura jealousy couldn't be that bad or he'd have been more of a grumpy, sulky asshole, and he'd been downright sociable recently, especially in that shower stall. And maybe Naruto had overreacted about Sakura's words; by the end, she'd been petting and cuddling with him, after all -- maybe she'd just needed some time to get used to it and was already over it. It wouldn't be right to mope for days because her acceptance of his scary freakishness had taken a few minutes.

"... Do you find it creepy too?"

Sasuke shrugged. "It's weird. Wild foxes aren't supposed to be human-shaped." His matter-of-fact tone said he didn't care much, though. "But you don't ravage the countryside or piss on things inside the house. I'm sure I can survive."

Naruto leaned into Sasuke and licked a long wet trail over his jaw.

"Hey!" Sasuke shoved his shoulder and rubbed his cheek dry with his sleeve. "That wasn't an invitation to be disgusting."

Naruto laughed. "Oh, come off it, like I never licked you other places."

"This conversation is over."

Naruto's shoulders shook with a laugh he couldn't let out; it would have been too loud. He nudged Sasuke with his shoulder, leaned more of his weight against the other teenager. He really was warm; Naruto made a pleased sound and burrowed closer, wedging an arm between Sasuke's back and the rock.

"If an enemy attacks, I won't hesitate to go through you."

Naruto rolled his eyes, unconvinced. "Uh huh."

He closed his eyes. The night air was fresh and clean, carrying the smell of night-blooming flowers. His foot was wedged against Sasuke's thigh. Granted, there was gravel embedded in his ass, but it wasn't pointy enough to matter.

It was almost cozy, really.

"...Are you really determined to stay up?" Sasuke asked with unconvincing annoyance.

"Yeah. I'm not sleepy."

Sasuke grumbled under his breath. "Fine, if you want to be exhausted tomorrow." He crossed his arms and leaned back against the rock -- against Naruto's arm too, incidentally. Naruto would lose circulation in his fingers pretty soon. "I'm taking a nap. Wake me up when you get tired."

"Heh." Naruto didn't bother pulling free, so Sasuke wouldn't 'be reminded' of the fact that technically Naruto was kinda-sorta holding him. "Okay. 'Night, boyfriend."

"... Don't call me pet names."

"Sure thing, darling."

"... Naruto."

"Babe?"

"Na _ru_ to."

Hehe. "... Night, Sasuke."

Sakura was supposed to have the last shift once Sasuke's was done, but Naruto kept watch until the sky turned from black to peach and gold.

After that of course he fell asleep, and Sakura had to wake them both up, and just about anything could have attacked them with no sentry my god what were you _thinking_ , but nothing had, so he groped them both and ran.


	4. Allies (Sasuke)

Drip.   
  
Drip.   
  
Drip.   
  
Sasuke glared at the little rivulet slowly filtering through a folded-up length of bandage, leaving brownish-gold tracks on the white cloth. The gourd underneath was only a third full. He had a feeling this was going to take hours.   
  
Frowning, he wedged himself in a sitting position on a rocky ledge, a foot pushing against the opposite wall of the narrow crevasse, his other leg dangling just over the muddy, sluggish stream that ran at the bottom. At least he was out of sight. He'd reached the miniature waterfall by wading through the stream from the sea up, and hadn't touched anything; his scent should have evaporated by now.  
  
This was the morning of the second day of the test and they hadn't found anyone to steal tokens from yet, be they other genin or wandering jounin. Sasuke pulled his own out of its hiding place in his arm-warmer and turned it over in his hand. It was a simple coin-sized disk of copper, with the Mist Village symbol and a serial number engraved on it.

"You get three per team!" they'd been told, "And if you want to pass, you'll bring nine back. That's nine per team, provided you're a full team; lose a member, and it's every man for himself at the exit."

Sasuke had made calculations. Taking into account the lone members' augmented need for tokens and the expected brutality of the Mist genin in the competition, it wasn't so surprising they'd had to add Jounin to the mix if they wanted the tournament of the third test to be anything worth looking at. No doubt every country wanted an acceptable number of new Chuunin made this exam to strengthen their villages; no one would be satisfied if only a handful of people passed because the level was insanely high, and the rest all died or were sent home too badly crippled to ever try again.

The wandering jounin weren't supposed to attack the genin or make the test more difficult; but they carried a token each, and if you could steal it off them, Sasuke supposed that was one less you had to pry from a fellow genin's cold, dead fingers. But so far Team Seven hadn't seen anyone at all, jounin or genin.

The stream kept dripping. Might as well do something productive... Sasuke cupped his hands, concentrated his chakra. The stone would protect him from chakra-sensitive people, and if anyone heard the chirping, well, there were enough birds nesting everywhere on this island to account for it.

Ox, Hare, Monkey.

Of course, if anyone got close enough to see the glow... Maybe he'd get some exercise.

"Chidori."

And again. Ox, Hare, Monkey.

He was in the middle of his fourth Chidori not-quite-sphere, and getting no closer to mastering the highly unstable shape, when the dense tangle of plants at the surface started rustling. It was a specific pattern of movement : someone running. Someone running really fast.

Two someones. Maybe more, but in that case they were quieter about it.

And not his teammates. They came from entirely the wrong direction for that. Sasuke screwed the half-full gourd top closed and secured the precious water to his belt. Swinging his legs off the ledge, he slipped out of his seat and crept up the rocky wall, and looked out through the gray-green leaves of the low bushes hanging over the edges of the canyon.

When he saw the kunoichi team, the ones who'd hung all over Naruto on the ferry, running for their lives from three burly, sword-brandishing men, he was tempted to stay in his hiding place and let them fend for themselves. But unless they changed directions, they would cross paths with his own teammates in short order.

And then he got a closer look at the men chasing the kunoichi trio, and hiding ceased to be an option. It was close to impossible for triplets to be identical, which meant the trio of Rock ninjas were kage bunshins. Which meant the guy with the oversized scimitar still had two teammates crawling around somewhere. Somewhere where _his_ teammates might be.

Sasuke sprang out of the canyon under one of the triplets' feet. His kunai buried itself in guts to the hilt, and for a second, Sasuke thought he'd gotten the caster, but it burst into smoke as Sasuke landed. Two enemies left, and they reacted fast. A large, viciously curved sword whistled through the air where his head should have been, prompting Sasuke to throw himself down and roll through the thorny bushes.

He still had the chakra he'd intended for a Chidori sphere in his hands, and by now his hands flew through the seals without a pause. The footing was bad for launching himself fast enough; he wouldn't reach his target.

But he still remembered what Naruto had said on that boat, about lightning wanting to take shapes more natural to it. Not wanting to be static. He shoved the energy outwards, trying to force it down a straight, narrow beam.

He'd been aiming for the one on the left, but the other one's metal sword was closer and his Chidori beam broke his control and crackled to the side. The man exploded in a puff of smoke and dust; Sasuke swept through the opening. Too late to stop the original as his hands flitted through hand seals Sasuke knew all too well. Two other clones popped into existence to replace the two he'd just destroyed.

At least now Sasuke knew who was the original. If he knocked him out... but the clones blocked his way as the original went back to giving chase to the kunoichi team. He caught a glimpse of the blonde with the curly hair stumbling, and the brunette with the spear whirled around, swinging her longer weapon at the Rock ninja's legs under his guard, but Sasuke couldn't see more than that before his own assailants demanded his attention again.

For a few intense seconds, it was all he could see -- the synchronized dance of two large, curved swords, forcing him to weave and dodge. He was good enough to avoid any close calls, but if he slowed down too much, they would get him. He needed to end this, quickly.

He allowed them to corner him, to leave him only one escape route; they predictably pushed him into it. Kicking off the rock at his back, he jumped high in the air. No trees to ricochet off of; they knew exactly where he would land. They were waiting, matching smirks on their faces.

"Katon: Goukakyou no jutsu!"

By the time he landed, the bunshins were gone -- but so were the kunoichi team and the last, real enemy. Sasuke gave chase. He couldn't see them anymore, no doubt hidden behind a falsely shallow bump of the ground, but they hadn't made any efforts to hide their tracks; he saw trampled grass, and even a few uprooted bushes.

He crested a hillock, and first saw the tall, brown-haired girl. She lay in a tangle of gangly limbs in the middle of a thicket, a few feet down the slope; the shrubs had been half-uprooted by her weight, threatening to dump her down the sharper incline of the hill. Blood soaked her bandaged arm and her zippered bodysuit and she'd been disarmed, but she was conscious and no one tried to finish her off; there were more urgent things to do than to stop and chat. Sasuke leaped over her body, skidding down the slope in a shower of loosened rocks and dust.

"H-hey!" she called weakly behind him.

Growling impatiently, Sasuke snatched her spear off the ground, screeching to a stop on a rock to send it sailing toward its owner. That was all he was disposed to do in her favor; turning back, he caught a glimpse of the brunette crawling through the bush to get at the spear, and then he was running again.

The rest of them weren't far; he just had to turn around the corner of a small cliff, and here they were. The Rock ninja with his big, curved sword -- no bunshins this time. Sasuke was briefly surprised to see he hadn't taken the time to make a few more -- as poor fighters as the blonde and the transvestite were, comparatively, it was still two against one.

The Rock nin was targeting the blonde, who held him at bay with wild slashes of razor wire, making cut-up leaves and flowers fly; but as Sasuke ran to meet them, the guy blocked the wires with the thick edge of his sword; he let their momentum wrap them around the blade, and yanked the girl off her feet. A kunai thrown at the wires by her teammate cut her free, and she rolled away just as the Rock nin's sword came down.

She wouldn't dodge the follow-up slash; Sasuke put on a burst of speed, but unless she managed to dodge again, he was going to be too late.

That was when her teammate tackled the enemy.

Sasuke would have done the same -- provided he somehow managed to lose every single one of his kunai and drive himself to the very edge of chakra exhaustion when his enemy was still good for another round or three. But someone needed to explain to that idiot that a guy who could successfully pass for a small-boned, delicate girl had no business hurtling himself at a hulking warrior, especially one with such a solid, rooted stance.

The gray-haired guy had had the foresight to braid his too-long hair and stuff it down his shirt; the rest of his flowing clothes made aiming for his body more difficult, though Sasuke could see a few shallow cuts on his upper arms and ribs, but they weren't so safe against getting grabbed. The Rock ninja did lose a second that the girl used to crawl clear -- but he only switched targets, elbowing the gray-haired boy who clung to his back in the ribs hard enough to make the boy gasp.

Sasuke was close enough to throw kunai now, but they kept moving, the Rock ninja trying to get a good hold on the boy, the boy doing his best not to let him. Sasuke chose to snatch up the girl instead, throwing her across his shoulder and bouncing up the cliff. He dumped her on her ass at the top, where she couldn't get in the way, and jumped back down, ignoring her outraged shriek.

By the time he got back down, the Rock ninja was holding his squirming adversary under one arm, sword in that hand, and was doing his best to search him for tokens with his free hand.

Sasuke personally thought solid, Earth-rooted stances were good for one thing; at the last moment, the Rock guy saw his kunai coming, but he wasn't fast enough to dodge it. It stabbed home just over his hip, and his hold on both weapon and prisoner went slack. The gray-haired boy squirmed free and scrambled away down the canyon. Sasuke didn't bother keeping an eye on him. Another kunai in hand, he stared down the enemy.

"Give me your token," Sasuke said, the first and last ultimatum he was ready to offer. The rock ninja only sneered, but Sasuke's sharingan caught the barest twitch of a hand toward his belt, where he had no doubt stashed it.

He didn't need a sharingan to catch the way the man paled when he realized the hidden pocket was empty.

"The little shit!" the Rock ninja snarled, incensed.

Sasuke had to dodge back quickly when the enemy pulled out an explosive tag and threw it at him. The cliffs shook; gravel rattled down. He jumped forward through the thick dust, squinting, only to see the swordsman's back as he gave chase to the escaping transvestite. From her perch up the cliff, the blonde hurtled rocks at his head, slowing down the burly, injured ninja a little more, and for a second Sasuke assumed he would have no trouble catching up at all.

And then the blonde screamed down. "Look out! _Water!_ "

What tipped Sasuke off to her actual meaning was the rush of displaced air at his back, as if pushed along the canyon by something massive and rather hurried.

He glanced over his shoulder. A twelve feet high wall of water rushed down the canyon, forcing Sasuke to jump for the closest jutting rock and scramble up. He got clear in time, but the splash soaked his legs and made his hold a little slippery. He scanned his surroundings for the caster of the jutsu, a corner of his mind noting that the flash flood wasn't that long; it was already losing speed and mass, leaving behind soggy moss, wet rocks, and a lot of mud in the cracks.

Sasuke climbed to the top of his rock and leaped to the cliff, scanning his surroundings. He found the caster after a few seconds; he was pale and a little shaky, but then such a huge mass of water probably required effort. But when Sasuke advanced on him, the enemy's hands snapped up into a series of seals Sasuke had never seen before. Sasuke's hands came up to mimic his, knowing he couldn't block a water attack with fire or thunder.

... And then Sakura popped up behind the enemy and brained him with a rock.

Well then.

Sasuke sighed, scanned their surroundings for an eventual third Rock ninja, didn't find any, and allowed himself to let the battle high simmer down.

"Sasuke!" Naruto called from the other cliff. "What the hell happened here?"

Sasuke growled and nodded toward the blonde girl who stood a dozen feet away, half-hidden behind a boulder. "What do you think happened, genius?"

Naruto blinked and waved at the girl. "Hey, Kigane!" While Sakura efficiently hogtied and searched the ninjutsu user, Naruto stepped up toward the edge of the cliff. He gave the wet ground below a dubious look, and then he glared at Sasuke. "You coulda gotten some water while you were at it! I bet you forgot."

"... Oh, fuck you."

Naruto didn't even pay attention. With a big leap, he crossed the gap, sauntering up to the blonde bimbo. Sasuke's eyes narrowed. On the other side of the canyon, Sakura yanked a bit hard on a rope, making her prisoner moan weakly.

"You okay there, Kigane? Where are your teammates?"

She gave him a look full of anguish, with a little despair sprinkled on top, and latched onto his arm, all but cuddling it in her cleavage. Sasuke stalked toward them. The nerve of her, trying to play that card here and now...

"Beni-chan got hit and she fell, and Jin-kun -- that big guy with the sword chased him, and I don't know where he is now, and --"

Her breath hitched; Naruto gave her a worried look and patted her hand awkwardly. "Hey, hey! It's gonna be alright. We'll go find Beni and patch her up, and -- Sasuke, did you see which way Jin went?"

Sakura landed between Sasuke and Naruto before Sasuke could make contact. She looked about as annoyed as Sasuke felt; he didn't try to push past her to yank the clingy bimbo off Naruto, since he had a feeling Sakura intended to do just that. And Sakura did; she patted the girl's shoulder with perfunctory compassion, and detached her from Naruto's arm under the pretense of running a quick health check on her.

"Your wrist is sprained, you shouldn't use it like that," Sakura said, expressionless, as she took hold of said wrist, unhooked the razor-wire bracelet, and felt for deeper damage underneath.

From the way Kigane grimaced, it wasn't a very gentle check, but the girl didn't complain. The way she watched Sakura, Sasuke was pretty sure the underlining 'you should also _never touch him again_ ' had gotten through.

Naruto scanned the horizon, frowning. "If that sword guy is still after Jin, he's gotta be in trouble. Sasuke, you saw which way they went--"

Sasuke pointed out the right direction. "I was down in the canyons, I didn't see much more. You can track them better than I can. You go." Naruto looked like he was going to protest, even without knowing that the kunoichi team and their hunter tended to leave tracks like a troop of rampaging bears. Sasuke frowned harder. "I need to lead Sakura to where the other girl is."

"-- Right, right." Accepting Sasuke's reasoning, Naruto patted Kigane on the shoulder, grinning at her. "Relax, I'll get him back." He was gone in a flash, running along the edge of the cliff until they lost him from view behind a clump of gnarly trees.

In unison, Sasuke and Sakura turned around to stare at the interloper. The girl beamed at them, playing with her curls nervously.

"... That's... So great of you to help us like that! But then, that's the Konoha spirit, right? You guys saved us."

Sakura gave her a narrow-eyed 'can the bullshit' glare; Sasuke noted and filed away the unexpectedly fierce expression.

"Konoha spirit, my _ass_. Hand over your token."

Kigane's sunny grin faltered and her shoulders slumped. "Man, you guys are harsh."

"Token," Sakura demanded again, holding out her hand. "You've got three, you can spare one."

"Aw, come on..."

"Your teammate's bleeding out," Sasuke mentioned, crossing his arms, and fought not to smile, or smirk, or anything of the sort.

"Fine!" Kigane gave in with a pout. "But I don't have them, Jin was the one who kept them all. We'll give you one when Naruto-kun brings him back, how's that?"

Sasuke didn't say anything, letting Sakura decide. Her brows were furrowed, her jaw set, and he didn't remember her eyes being quite that green before, or quite that sharp.

"... Fine. Depending on how badly your teammates are hurt, I'll ask for a second token. Let's go."

Kigane looked like she wanted to protest, but in the end her worry for her teammates won and she sighed. "Alright. I think it was this way?"

Sasuke nodded absently and let the blonde go first, still watching Sakura. She stood with her shoulders drawn back proudly, her fingers curled into loose fists, and she stared at the other kunoichi with that razor-sharp suspicion that dared her to try anything. Scowling darkly, she took a step forward.

Sasuke thought he rather approved of Sakura like this, irritated and possessive and determined not to give an inch.

He was standing a little lower than her on the slope, and her bare shoulder was there, and there was no one to see, so he kissed it, and then when she blinked at him in surprise, he smiled a little bit.

+

**(Naruto)**

Man, how Sasuke expected him to track down those guys when the whole area had just been flushed with saltwater, he didn't know. Naruto kept running down the canyon anyway, assuming they wouldn't have wasted time climbing up just yet. Maybe he wouldn't need a scent trail; he could see skid marks through wet moss here and there, and a few overturned rocks... A few freshly broken, as if the sword guy had hit and missed. No blood on the ground, though. Well, that was good.

He couldn't hear anything but the wind over the rocks and the waves on the beach. The canyon broke open on a narrow band of thick sand that the waves lapped at. Cursing under his breath, Naruto squinted and looked around for a clue. If there were tracks in the sand, they had been erased already -- what was that?

Naruto trotted down the beach, sticking close to the cliff. Foam frothed around his ankles, sneaking gritty, thick sand in between his toes.

The rock was dark, but Naruto could see and smell the splash of red on it, not yet washed off by the sea. A few feet farther, a stretch of damp sand still sported footprints.

He found the cave soon after. It started like any other canyon, but after a few feet, the walls started leaning into each other, to meet in a twisty, narrow tunnel. The guy wouldn't have much space to swing his sword there, Naruto assumed, but unless there were several exits, Jin was pretty much trapped. He stalked inside, clambering over the boulders on the ground.

"It's dark as Kyuubi's ass in there," he muttered as he passed the first bend. The tunnel was long, and awkward to navigate, but eventually the cave widened a little, and he fell into an easy crouch. It stank of bird shit and decaying seaweed and dead fish, and his eyes watered. "Urgh! Almost as stinky, too."

He didn't see or smell anyone nearby; but he had a strange feeling, like that dead cave was a little _too_ still. Like maybe they'd been playing cat and mouse in the dark, and of course they'd noticed him coming. Hard not to, when there was no way to prevent his body blocking some of the light. Well, in that case...

"HEEYY! JIIN!"

The echoes deafened him. The cave was a lot bigger on the inside. He crawled farther down the tunnel before the echoes died, so the sounds he made as he moved would be covered. He was almost flat on the ground; a good move, because a second later a handful of shuriken struck the wall over his head.

He tried to listen for movement, but there were dripping sounds inside, and the soft whisper of wavelets licking a shore. Great, so there was water inside, too. Better not fall in it, there was no way to tell how deep it was, or how full with slippery seaweed. Naruto slowly crawled along the ground, trying to breathe past the stink to find Jin's scent.

He found the smell of blood first. It was powerful enough to be easily recognizable, even over all the rot and decay; he followed it, despite not knowing which of the two it belonged to.

When a hand pressed against his lips, he didn't think; he bit down. The body beside him tensed up, and he heard a quiet intake of breath. A second later, the scent registered as vaguely familiar; not the person itself, so much as indefinable traces of having lived in Konoha. Apologetic, he loosened his jaw. He could taste blood just under the skin.

Jin pressed his fist against the top of Naruto's head and gave him an irritated little shove, pushing him down. Naruto hunkered down, feeling around cautiously. The boy appeared to be hiding under an overhanging bit of rock. Naruto closed his eyes and breathed in, trying to catch another scent, but the Rock guy was too far away for his smell to reach Naruto over all the stinky things inside the cave.

He lifted his head, squinting, wishing his eyes to adapt faster to the almost total darkness. Jin hadn't been touching him to notice, but he pushed it down almost immediately. Jin's hand stayed atop Naruto's head, and he leaned closer, as if trying to be ready to use his whole body to pin down Naruto if he tried it again.

"You can see me?" Naruto mouthed soundlessly, his cheek pressed against the damp ground.

He felt a nod, a jaw brushing against his temple. Jin had to see him real well, to read his lips in the dark. Naruto started smiling.

"Can he see us?"

A no, this time. Jin's lips brushed his ear, and he breathed a few words, so softly Naruto wasn't sure he'd really heard. "Listens real well, though."

Naruto frowned a little. Hrrm. Okay, the guy would hear them coming. ...That was okay. Naruto was pretty sure anyone with working ears could hear him, anyway, and that had never bothered him before.

"Where?" he mouthed when Jin leaned back.

Jin took Naruto's wrist and pointed his hand in the right direction, slowly tracking silent movements. Naruto realized belatedly that there was a boulder in between them and the guy. Huh. Maybe Jin was an illegitimate Hyuuga or something.

"Obstacles?"

Jin paused, as if considering the wisdom of telling Naruto, before leaning in and whispering again, pointing Naruto's hand toward said obstacles; "Rocks, waist-high. Pond. Fish inside."

Naruto snorted quietly, and could almost feel the tangible disapproval coming from his companion.

"With stingers," he enunciated, barely any louder.

Naruto didn't know whether it had been his snort or Jin's voice that prompted it; but suddenly Jin clambered over his body and ran away, just as Naruto recognized the quick, soft slapping sounds as someone running at them barefoot.

He rolled back, making no attempt at being quiet now. His hands slapped together in a familiar seal. "Jin! Where?!"

"Front-left!" the boy shrieked; sparks flashed as a kunai he'd lifted from Naruto struck the enemy's blade and incidentally revealed his position to the Rock ninja. But the guy was only a lunge and a slash away from Naruto.

Naruto grinned a fangy grin and completed the seal.

"Kage Bunshin no jutsu!"

A dozen clones mobbed the ninja, tackling him to the ground. A few exploded as he slashed wildly at them, but Naruto just made more to replace them, so much that he had to step back to stay clear of the melee. He didn't want to trip on anything nasty and end up in the pond.

Jin's hand found his shoulder and squeezed hard. "... How many -- _shit_." 

Naruto grinned wider. "Looks like we're done here. You got some rope?"

"Uh -- yeah. How many did you -- they're not all real, right?"

Naruto snickered. "Sure they are."

"... Hell... You told us you'd fought Gaara of the Sand, but we didn't _believe_ you..."

Naruto preened, and then made an outraged face that he hoped Jin could see. "Hey! I'm not a liar."

"Well, no, but everyone boasts--"

"I," Naruto said proudly, drawing himself up, "don't _need_ to boast."

Then the Rock nin swept his feet through three bunshins and almost managed to pull free of the melee, and Naruto had to join in and got clipped on the jaw for his trouble. Ow. Stubborn bastard.

The guy struggled, swearing at them. Tying him up in the dark proved rather difficult; Naruto had to dissipate two of his bunshins that had gotten tangled up by mistake, which gave the Rock nin just enough slack to start punching around again.

Huffing in irritation, Jin waded through -- the bunshins could feel his slim body pushing forward -- and... did something. The Rock ninja's body went slack a few seconds later, mystifying Naruto. He felt for his pulse, for a second fearing that Jin had poisoned him.

"What did you do?"

"Trade secret," Jin muttered tiredly.

Naruto snorted. "Oi, I just saved your ass."

"Fine! It's just a sleeping powder. When it's wet, you can paste it on skin and it goes right through and into the bloodstream. Happy? Let's get out of here."

... Brr. Note to self, don't let Jin stick anything paste-like or wet to his skin. Naruto tied up the guy anyway, hoisting him on his shoulder.

"Oh, just leave him here, he can always cut the rope on the rocks."

Naruto shrugged, and turned to face the area where a faint, useless glow signaled the tunnel. "I'm not sure how high the tides get. What if he drowns before he wakes up?"

"What --" Jin spluttered. "He tried to _gut_ me! To cut off my head! To cut off my HAIR, do you know how long I spent growing that shit, do you think I want to wear a stupid wig ever again -- shit! 'Wouldn't want him to drown,' you say! _I_ wouldn't mind."

"Hey!" Naruto snapped. "You damn well better be joking."

Jin didn't answer. Growling in disgust, Naruto stomped his way toward the exit. His foot slipped in something muddy, and tepid water sloshed up his pant leg as he stumbled, but he was annoyed enough that he just growled and pulled himself up, refusing to surrender to gravity and dump his captive in the pond.

The other boy followed in sullen silence, though after the first time Naruto tripped on some kind of stalactite -- or was that a stalagmite, he could never remember -- Jin condescended to step up and guide him by the elbow. Naruto noticed Jin never did fully take into account the mass of the ninja on his shoulder when he led the way to the tunnel. Poor guy would have a headache and funny bruises when he woke up. Naruto didn't say anything, because, well, yes, after all, said poor guy had come after an unarmed boy with a very big, very sharp sword, and that wasn't really fair at all.

"...What happened to Beni and Kigane?" Jin asked as the faint ambient light started allowing Naruto to get an idea of where he was stepping once again.

Naruto's anger abated at the badly hidden worry in his voice. "My teammates went to help them. Kigane's fine, I think she got a sprained wrist but that's it. Not sure about Beni, I didn't see her. Sorry," Naruto added quietly, thinking about how worried he'd be if it was Sasuke and Sakura he'd had to leave behind bleeding. Hell, he rectified, he wouldn't have left them behind at all. But still.

"... Oh. Okay. Thanks." Jin sighed, wobbling a little on his feet.

"Uh, but Sasuke didn't seem to think she was dying or anything!" Naruto hurried to reassure him. He hit the ass of the guy he was carrying against the wall and almost lost his balance.

Jin paused briefly, and then gave a quiet, strangely subdued chuckle. "Thank you."

He wouldn't thank Naruto if he knew what exactly Sasuke qualified as 'okay.' Sasuke standards just weren't sane people standards at times. "Eh, I didn't to anything."

"You didn't?" Jin asked, slightly ironic. "Because I was under the impression that you kind of saved my life there."

"Well, I meant, not for your teammate." Shit, now Naruto was starting to blush. He hoped Jin couldn't see that. "So, um, how d'you see in the dark like that? Do you have the Byakugan or something?"

Jin's silence gained a frosty edge.

"...No."

"Oh, 'cause I think you have pupils, and all, but I thought, maybe you were -- ow! Hey, what was that for?"

"I'm a Kagami, thank you very much." Jin puffed up, not that he looked much bigger. "Not some other clan's bastard. We're just as old and noble as they are!"

"I've never heard of you guys," Naruto replied candidly, and then realized there was just enough light to see Jin's death glare. He shrugged as best as he could. "Eh, I don't pay attention to that kind of stuff. Okay, you're from an old clan. So, the eyes?"

Jin sighed tiredly, and considered him a few seconds, before taking the lead. He only started talking when he was a few steps ahead. "It's a combination of photographic memory, great night vision, ability to zoom in on very small details, and things like that."

"... Yeah?"

Jin muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath. "Basically, we can see reflections in reflections, even when the 'mirror' is tiny. The cave is full of mica," he added, a hand brushing against the stone. Tiny faceted crystals sparkled weakly in the light. Naruto hadn't really noticed on the way in. "It gives a very low-grade image, but still good enough to catch movement."

So as long as there was something to reflect it into something else that reflects it to them, they could see it? Naruto pulled the prisoner up on his shoulders and slowed down to cross a tricky part of the tunnel. He had to admit, it sounded convenient. "...But still, if there's a wall in the middle, you're fucked. Byakugan still tops."

Jin sent him a dirty look, and for a moment Naruto thought he was going to snap back, but the boy closed his eyes briefly and kept silent, dragging his feet out of the cave.

The waves covered the beach by now. Naruto squinted against the sun's glare, and waded after Jin toward the nearest canyon. White, foamy water massed around their calves.

The guy on his shoulders was getting heavy. Naruto huffed in annoyance and considered climbing up the cliff right now, but if the guy's last teammate spotted him and charged and he had to fight again, Sakura would have his hide. With a sigh, he sped up a little.

He didn't say anything the first and second time Jin tripped, but by the third time he was starting to wonder. "... You okay?"

"Ah -- just a little tired."

"You're exhausted from just one chase? Huh. Did they start hunting you guys at dawn or something?"

Jin twitched and glared at him, and once again Naruto thought he was going to get snapped at, but the boy obviously had a little more control than some other people Naruto knew. He glanced at Naruto, and then stared down.

The ground was a little tricky, sloping up to the canyon mouth, with waves lapping at their ankles, stealing away the sand under their heels and hiding rocks and branches under its foam. Jin rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand and slumped wearily. "... It's been a long day."

Obviously, 'train more' wasn't going to help much. "Well, er. Sucks."

The Rock nin on Naruto's shoulder squirmed weakly, unbalancing him, and Naruto spent a few seconds trying to keep his footing on wet sand. Grumbling, he hurried toward the bunch of dry seaweed that marked the upper tide limit.

"... Nnrhgh..."

"Aw hell. Jin, how long is your paste supposed to last?"

The boy swore between his clenched teeth. "Depends on metabolism. Dump him and let's go!"

Naruto growled at him, flashing his teeth. "I already told you no."

"But it's not even the highest tides!"

"I don't care -- aw, shit." The guy was squirming more now, nothing too bad yet, but it didn't help Naruto's balance much. Naruto veered toward a boulder that seemed to him like it would stand over the water, and tried to sit the guy in a crevice toward the top. It was awkward enough to unload the Rock ninja, so heavy and limp and frustrating with his floppiness, but it wasn't half as awkward as when the guy opened a blurry eye just as Naruto started feeling him up.

Naruto gave a guilty grin. "Uh. Token? Hey, I beat you fair and square."

The guy blinked fuzzily at Naruto, making a faint grimace -- and then his eyes latched onto something behind Naruto and he sneered and tried to lurch forward. The drugs were still acting, and the ropes were tight, so he barely flopped a little before falling back in the crevice.

"Huh?" Naruto looked over his shoulder. Jin stood there, shoulders hunched, as if trying to hide behind him.

"... Gimme mah -- mah ... 'm token back... Little bitch thief..."

Naruto blinked and watched the Rock ninja squirm. Well, he was kinda well-stuck for now. He wasn't gonna get free for a while. Naruto shrugged and jumped off the rock, holding out his hand to Jin. "Oh well, if you're the one who's got it. Pony up!"

The boy looked displeased, but he fished it out of his armband and handed it over. Grinning, Naruto stuffed it in his pocket and started walking.

He'd taken a dozen steps already by the time he noticed the way the other boy trailed behind. Eyes averted, shoulders a little slumped, Jin followed unenthusiastically. Naruto grimaced. "Hey, what are you moping about now?"

"I'm not moping!"

"Is it because I took that guy's token?"

Jin glared at him, and then deflated in a way Naruto found extremely alarming. "... No... You're right, you beat him and you saved me, you deserve it... It's not that."

Where was the yelling back and the hitting? Gah. Like Naruto knew anything about being comforting. Well, he could comfort Sakura just fine, but that usually implied cuddling and flirting, and, well, no. He risked a friendly tap on Jin's shoulder, and winced as the boy's lighter body was propelled forward. "Uh, sorry." Gah. What kind of man couldn't take a little back-slapping?

Jin sighed and shook his head. "... It's fine. It just helps driving it home some more."

"Uh, driving what?"

Jin looked away, making a vague hand gesture that Naruto had no clue how to interpret. "I'm so freaking _girly_." His voice was quiet, somber, so Naruto refrained from mentioning that Sakura was plenty girly and could still smash boulders into tiny little pieces. Not to mention Granny Tsunade and Gaara's scary sister. "I can't defend myself. I can't defend my teammates. I have to sneak around behind people's backs and flirt and be _pretty_ \--" 

The boy took in a ragged breath, and Naruto winced, took a step closer. Damn it. he could inspire people just fine, but comfort them? Not a clue. "Aw, come on, man -- you, uh, you have your sleeping paste thing? And your eyes, it's good, you can see people coming --"

"And when they come I can't do anything to stop them!" The boy looked up at him, light gray eyes full of frustration and a hint of pain. "And Beni got injured and I have no clue how bad, and I couldn't do anything to shield Ki -- shit." Jin kicked a rock, and hung his head. His hair fell in sleek strands over his face, hiding his eyes from view. "How can I call myself a man when I can't do anything for them?"

Naruto winced again. Yeah, that he could understand, he thought. Being powerless, watching his precious people get hurt -- that had to be the most horrible feeling in the world. "Well, um, nothing says you've got to be a spy all your life, right? I mean, you'll have a growth spurt eventually, so you might as well start training now? Right? Uh, your teacher will understand if you explain it to him?"

Jin's hands trembled minutely, and he clenched them into fists. His shoulders shook briefly. Naruto flailed in alarm and grabbed them, trying to make the boy look up at him.

Instead, Jin bowed his head, pressed his forehead against Naruto's chest, just under his collarbone, and took in a shuddering breath. Naruto froze. Silken hair brushed his arm, and puffs of shaky breath warmed his t-shirt. Shit, shit, shit, what should he do? Anything he'd do for Sasuke or Sakura was non-applicable, and his buddies -- for Shika he'd just sit down beside him and wait; if Chouji did, Naruto would get Shika for him; Kiba'd never break down and lose face -- a punch to the shoulder would work; Lee -- maybe back-patting would...

He gave Jin's narrow back a cautious pat. The boy shuddered and moved a little closer. He seemed even smaller like this, curled up, as if asking for Naruto's protection.

That or comfort sex.

Except he didn't smell like sex. And not that much like distress either, actually, now that Naruto was paying attention to his scent. Naruto sighed, placed a hand on Jin's shoulder, and gave a warning squeeze.

"Oi, Jin. This hand had better be going for my ass and not for my token." Because a 'not interested, sorry' would hurt Jin a lot less than a punch in the face.

+

**(Sakura)**

Sakura hadn't been in any kind of suiting frame of mind, so when she felt Sasuke's lips on her shoulder at first she didn't even get it. There were a few seconds of _blank_ as her thoughts screeched to a stop, derailed from jealous anger to a kind of shocked little thrill.

Sasuke had just kissed her. It had been genuine -- approval and affection -- and entirely spontaneous. And, oh, she didn't even know where to start wondering.

So she wasn't really paying attention when Sasuke took point to direct them where the last of the kunoichi trio had fallen. But when the curly-haired blonde slowed down to her side, well, Sakura wasn't about to act grossly unprofessional in front of her, and like hell she would let the annoying girl see her flustered. Thankfully, she was pretty sure Kigane's back had been turned for the kiss...

Her unfriendly sideway look didn't seem to faze Kigane any. "So." The blonde smiled. "I just wanted to make sure, so I don't step on your toes again... Are you and Naruto-kun going out, or what?"

Sakura's eyelid twitched, her elation entirely snuffed out. Was Kigane trying to get in her good graces via _girl talk_? After that stunt with cuddling up to Naruto, all 'ooh, you big strong male, take me in your arms, protect me...' Urgh! 

"I didn't even think you two might -- I mean, there was this rumor about you and another girl and the shower room, so I kind of assumed..."

Sakura's face caught on fire, and with it her only chance to categorically deny any of it. "H-how do you -- what makes you think I --"

Kigane waved a hand in denial as she trotted at Sakura's side. "Oh, please, there aren't many kunoichis with pink hair around the island, you know. Well, there's one with magenta and I think another with peach, but it was more orangeish."

This time, Sakura paled. "You thought I was a _lesbian_?!"

A few steps ahead, Sasuke's foot skipped on a stone and he almost messed up his landing. Sakura's mortification reached new heights.

"Come on, two girls, one shower stall, funny noises..."

Sasuke's shoulders twitched in a suspicious way and he made a quiet snorting noise. Sakura briefly wished to die.

Kigane caught sight of Sakura's face and winced, lifting her hands defensively. "Oh, there's nothing wrong about being a lesbian! Some of my good friends are lesbians. I mean, alright, like I told Naruto-kun, a Chuunin exam isn't the best place to come out, but..."

"I'm not a lesbian!"

Sasuke stopped pretending not to listen to the conversation, looking over his shoulder. Sakura looked away quickly, aware that she was blushing once again.

"Naruto came out, huh?" He quirked an eyebrow at the blonde. "When'd that happen?"

"Oh, we were just joking!" Kigane paused. "...I think."

Sasuke's lips twitched downward. Sakura knew Sasuke's expressions intimately, and this one only happened when he was trying to repress a smile. Curse him.

"Naruto's not ga -- not a girl! Crossdresser. Lesbian. Thing."

Kigane blinked innocently. "Transexual?"

"Yes -- no! He's not. He's a hundred percent man. He was just -- it was a henge. In the shower."

"Oooooh. Things _totally_ make sense now."

Sakura, once upon a time, had been prepared to say there was nothing that would ever make her want to bite Sasuke. Or punch him a little. That was before she caught similar 'I'm not going to laugh, I'm not going to laugh' twitches on both his face and that boyfriend-stealing bimbo's.

She could have snarled something back -- something she would have regretted later, such as 'shouldn't you worry less about a stranger's sex life and more about how your teammate is bleeding out on those rocks?' -- but then she caught sight of the teammate in question, and her foolish embarrassment disappeared, along with any intention of making light of the situation.

"Sasuke. Perimeter check," she snapped without looking away from the prone girl, all joking forgotten. "You, come with me." Sakura leaped up the series of jutting boulders, going straight for the unmoving body caught on the slope.

The trail of gravel and torn plants was clear, as was the blood tracked down the slope; if the girl hadn't managed -- or been lucky enough -- to get her spear's butt stuck in a crack and wedge her body underneath, she would have slid all the way down to the bottom. Or at least all the way to the closest sharp-edged boulders. The way the brunette lay curled around the wood shaft, Sakura hoped the impact hadn't been violent enough to break her floating ribs.

"Beni-chan!" All elegance or daintiness forgotten, the blonde scrambled up to her teammate on hands and feet, kicking up dust and loose pebbles.

There was nothing to easily stick to; a shallow chakra hold would only mean more earth and small rocks would come down with you. Sakura spread her area of contact, reaching down vertically with her chakra so she could get to the packed earth underneath.

"Don't touch her." She stepped up slowly, making sure of every hold. Kigane slid back down, bumping against her leg. Sakura's hold strained for a second as rocks shifted under her heel, and then stabilized. "... There. Don't move. Beni? I'm a medic-nin." Sakura's heartbeat sped up for a second. She wasn't -- she just wasn’t, not yet. But she had some training, and that would have to be enough. "I'm going to touch you now."

She leaned forward, placing the back of her hand against the brunette's lips. For a second, she didn't feel anything, and then there was a puff of breath. Another. She counted.

"She's breathing," she said neutrally. No red foam at her lips. Hopefully her lungs were fine. "Kigane, I need you to find another hold. You're in my way."

The blonde moved to the side and skidded down to the closest rock -- laughably easy to control, for one who wasn't already injured. Beni really hadn't needed any of those wounds aggravated. Sakura braced herself for what she might find, and moved closer, pulling off her gloves and tucking them in her belt pouch.

First, check up the skeleton. Green haloed her hands, which she ran lightly over the girl's skull -- no swelling in her brain; good -- down her shoulders and dangling legs. She had to reach up and over to be able to check on her spine -- no break, no swelling. Sakura breathed a little more easily. The ribs were more difficult to access, with how Beni curled on her side around the spear, but Sakura reached her chakra farther until she could have a clear image of them. She found a crack; they'd have to be careful not to let it splinter, Sakura had never learned how to heal bones and she wasn't willing to wing it. No, she was only sure of herself with flesh wounds.

She had her work cut out for her. The girl had been stabbed just over the hip, her arms and legs showed more abrasions than whole skin, one of her knees was sprained, and her abdomen was one giant, painfully deep bruise. Sakura looked up at Sasuke, perched at the top of the hill. "Her spine is fine. We'll move her. Kigane, try to prepare somewhere comfortable up there."

The girl opened her mouth to speak, but in the end she went, her face a picture of worry. Sasuke came down the side, to avoid showering them in dust, and joined Sakura. She'd caught the flash of Sharingan, so she wasn't surprised when he grasped the way she held steady on the loose soil right away. Cheater.

"How?"

Sakura pulled the light canvas they used to ward off the rain out of her pouch as she considered it. She wasn't sure; Tsunade had never covered it. Beni's position wasn't the best. They couldn't roll her on her back since it was uphill and she would slide right out of the improvised stretcher, and if she rolled downhill, she would fall face down on her cracked ribs and injured arms before she rolled on her back again.

"We'll slip that between her and the spear, try to get it under her as much as possible, then we block her body with our legs and the cloth and pull the spear out... Then we'll see. Her ribs are cracked, so be careful," she cautioned.

Sasuke worked Beni's legs in the folded stretcher in silence, following Sakura's slow and cautious lead.

"That's where I'm missing Naruto," she commented quietly. "It would be so much easier with you two holding the ends, we could make her slide right in." She looked up; she didn't think Kigane's arms were strong enough to hold steady, and she didn't trust the girl's chakra hold either. Oh, it wasn't too difficult for anyone who knew how to water-walk, but Sakura wasn't prepared to risk it just yet.

Eventually, Beni was loaded on the improvised stretcher, laying straight enough that Sakura wasn't afraid they'd break her ribs. They carried her up. Kigane had prepared a hollow, up where the slope softened, kicked rocks away and pulled grass and leaves to cushion the ground a bit.

Kigane sank to her knees beside her teammates, a hand on her mouth as she took in the drying blood and abraded skin. "Oh, oh Beni-chan..." she whispered, caressing the brunette's forehead lightly.

"Most of that is skin-deep," Sakura commented dispassionately as she crouched on the other side of the unconscious girl. "Do you have any water? It needs to be cleaned."

Kigane pulled a gourd out of her skin pouch and handed it to Sakura, who frowned slightly as it sloshed. Not a lot of water left, but she wasn't going to use her own water to clean up a rival.

The stab wound was mostly clean, but she made sure no dirt stuck to the lips of the wound before she started working on closing it. "Try getting the gravel out," she told the other girl absently. "As much of it as you can."

Kigane's eyes roamed over the larges stretches of scratches, dust and blood stuck together around shredded bandages. She sucked in her breath, and nodded. "... Okay."

Sakura spared an uncharitable thought on the girl's uneasy silence and vaguely green face -- it was a cruel thought, but this Kigane was much better than the Kigane giggling in Naruto's ear -- and pushed her awareness of anything but the wound out of her mind.

Beni woke up at some point, but Kigane petted her hair until she relaxed again. She didn't make a sound. Sakura sealed the last of the stab wound and started picking out gravel and washing off various debris.

"Stupid bandages... 'sposed to prevent that..."

Sakura arched an eyebrow and picked cloth fibers out of a scabbing scratch; Beni was in enough general pain that she didn't notice the twinge. "It would have been a lot worse without them." She eyed the girl's skin thoughtfully. A lot of the damage was on the same side, where she'd slid; the rest was just a couple of scratches. She nudged Beni to lean on that side and started in on what she could reach of her back. "I'll close the ones that might scar, but I can't waste the chakra needed to close everything."

There had been internal bruising to fix, too. That one, Tsunade hadn't exactly taught her -- but it was close enough to flesh mending for her purposes. She'd been careful.

"Can't do anything for your ribs, though. We'll bandage them tight, but you'll have to pay attention."

Beni grunted and closed her eyes. Sakura wasn't sure she was in any state to listen, but hopefully Kigane would remind her.

Picking out gravel was a long, painstaking process, and a rather gross one at that. Sakura would have blood under her nails for days, she just knew it, and there were so many little bits of flesh and flaps of skin that only held by a string. It didn't really bother her, not until Kigane found a pot of salve to combat infection in Beni's pack.

The salve was a creamy white paste, one whose components were known to Sakura, all perfectly safe and appropriate.

The scent hit her nose, and suddenly she could smell everything, the thick, cloying salve that seemed to gather at the back of her mouth, the sourness of the binding agent, and the heavy smell of raw meat. Human meat.

Very professionally, Sakura sat back on her heels, wiped her hands on a length of bandage, swiveled around in a precise half-circle, and threw up.

Sasuke was at her side in an instant. "Sakura?"

"It's nothing," she said, and sipped a mouthful of water to rinse her teeth.

Sasuke moved loose earth over the incriminating spot with his foot, dampening the stink of stomach acid. He stepped a little closer, his leg brushing her shoulder. "Are you sure?"

Sakura spared a little smile for him. "Uh huh. Just, you know."

Sasuke's eyes softened a little, and his voice went quiet, a little teasing. "Bothersome. It's not even morning."

Sakura chuckled a little and rubbed at her temples. She was lower on chakra than she'd thought. She turned back to the wounded. Kigane was still holding the pot, staring at her.

"... Uh. Has it gone bad?"

"No, it's fine," Sakura said, and hoped she wouldn't have to explain herself.

"Are you sick -- oh! By 'morning,' you meant..." Kigane's vaguely interested expression became confused, and a lot more serious. "... You're _pregnant_?"

... Damn it. Sasuke's voice hadn't been quiet enough. Why wasn't she paying attention to her teammate, damn it? Alright, maybe keeping on applying a salve that made your medic throw up was a bad idea...

"Yes," Sakura growled, and hoped her tone was forbidding enough. It wasn't any of Kigane's business. "The salve. Are you trying to have it dry out?"

"--Oh, right."

Kigane started applying it on clean scratches again; Sakura went back to cleaning dirty areas. "Don't put it on too thick," she commented neutrally, though she still frowned. She had absolutely zero interest in becoming _friends_ with that team. Especially Kigane. 

"D'you start thinking of names yet?"

Sakura stared down at Beni, who lay stiff and wincing, and grinned ruefully at her.

"Uh. What?"

Beni's features were strained with pain and exhaustion, but she managed a little smirk anyway. "Baby. Names?"

Kigane blinked and smiled too. "Oh, that's right! I mean, you're not very far along right now, I don't think? It doesn't show. But maybe you've thought about it anyway?"

Sasuke twitched and retreated to a boulder a dozen steps away. Sakura barely noticed; she was still trying to get her brain in gear.

Baby... Names? ... For the... baby?

... For her child?

... Oh. _Oh_. 

She'd forgotten a little, she thought, that it wasn't only a growing lump of cells that made her get sick and demanded so many difficult sacrifices. It was a little person-to-be, too.

It needed -- he or she needed -- a name, too. A name to represent them -- him, her.

"Uh, doc?" Beni said, tone dry and amused. Sakura blinked down at her uncomprehendingly. "That's still attached."

Sakura looked down at her hand, and realized she was trying to pull out some skin along with the bit of straw stuck there. "Oh crap, I'm sorry! I didn't mean --"

"Eh, hurts everywhere right now. 'S okay."

Sakura cringed guiltily. It was because Beni hurt everywhere that she shouldn't make it worse! Sakura feathered soothing green chakra along Beni's side, closing more scratches as an apology. The girl relaxed a little, closing her eyes to enjoy the momentary relief.

"Where's Jin?"

Sakura took the salve from Kigane and started applying to Beni's legs as the blonde updated her friends on everything that happened from the moment she was knocked down and left behind. Sakura pretended not to listen, offering them some privacy as her mind kept running. A baby, a child, a person. Sakura felt dizzy. One day a teenager, and then her age, older even...

"And then we came back and found you pinned to the side of the hill, my god, don't ever scare me like that again." Kigane shot an angry look at Sasuke, who barely deigned to glance back before he turned his attention back on their surroundings. "... _Someone_ could have taken a second to pull you up before you fell," she told Beni, who chuckled and immediately regretted it.

"Oww. S'okay, Ki-chan..."

"She should have been fine," Sasuke said, glancing at them over his shoulder. From him, Sakura knew it was almost an apology, an acknowledgement that his assessment had been wrong. Kigane's eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, there was a big rock underneath," Beni acknowledged easily. "Just wasn't rooted as deep as it looked, I guess."

"Hrrm. Still."

"Two seconds later and I would have arrived in time to see that guy cut you in two," Sasuke said, vaguely annoyed. "You'd rather I had wasted the time?"

Kigane bristled.

"And since we're talking about unpleasant things anyway," Sakura cut her off before an argument could explode, "This taxed a lot more of my chakra than I can casually spare. So that will be two tokens."

The blonde really didn't look as friendly and easily approachable when she glared, stiff with offense. "Her ribs are still broken and she can't even walk! That's not worth two tokens."

Sakura's eyes narrowed. She didn't need to break eye contact to know that Sasuke was slowly moving to stand at her back, silent, his presence enough of a threat that he didn't need to say a thing.

"Kigane-san," Sakura said, and smiled as gently as she could fake. She was out of patience with her, and with that nausea and the baby talk and the chakra depletion and everything else. "You can either give us the second token, or we can take it. We're not willing to see other Konoha ninjas die, but that's as far as we're going to be taken advantage of."

"And you think she won't die, if she has to lay here for a week waiting for the test to end?! She can't even breathe without pain!"

Sakura scowled, false smile melting off. "Fine. I can't fix her ribs. I'll throw in a healing for either the knee or the skin. Your choice, Beni. Be aware I can't fix the knee entirely. Muscles and skin are one thing, ligaments another. It still won't heal entirely without rest."

She looked down at the exhausted brunette, who watched them fight with an air of weary cynicism.

"... Knee. Rather be able to move. Gotta hike."

Kigane gave her a worried look, but ultimately nodded, though with visible reluctance. "Fine. A second token."

Sasuke was frowning, as if asking 'are you sure?' Sakura nodded and gave him a brief smile. She was going to be tired, but nothing huge. She just wasn't willing to drain herself to the brink of exhaustion for anyone not part of Team Seven. She still had some leeway.

"Okay. Hand them over first."

Unhappily, Kigane fished a little purse out of her obi-like belt and handed two of the copper disks inside to her. Sakura stuffed them in her pocket, noticing without surprise that she'd lied when she told them Jin was the one keeping them for the team.

Healing the knee took a little more concentration than she'd hoped; ligaments were complex things. Still, she pushed herself to the limits of Tsunade's teachings, because she had her pride, damn it.

Besides, there would still be the cracked ribs and general soreness to make sure they didn't try to backstab Team Seven.

She hadn't really been aware that Sasuke was a little tense; but she noticed when he relaxed. "Here comes Naruto. Not too soon," he added with fake annoyance.

For a second she wondered what kind of baby names he would prefer. Sakura nodded, and kept working. It wasn't the right time for those thoughts.

Almost done... Almost... There! When she sat up in triumph and wiped her forehead, Naruto was standing at her side and looking mildly concerned. She took him in quickly -- no wounds, though he would heal fast on his own, no torn clothes. It seemed to have gone easily. Clothes dirty, hair in disarray, Jin looked a little frazzled, but more grouchy than injured.

He wouldn't look Naruto in the eye. Oh, who cared. Naruto was back, he was safe, and he'd gotten the boy back safe and sound. Sakura climbed up on her feet and smiled. "What took you so long, slowpoke?"

She was pretty sure all his baby names would be utterly ridiculous. She looked forward to hearing them, almost enough to forgive him the bathroom lesbian fiasco.

She kept smiling up until Sasuke stepped up to them, stone-faced, and plucked a single meter-long, smoke-gray hair off their boyfriend's T-shirt.

It could have been meaningless. They'd been in a fight; accidental crashes happened. Naruto could have picked Jin up to throw him to safety. Hell, Jin could have been combing his hair in an air draft, with Naruto at the other end.

But none of it would have made Naruto cringe.

He didn't look guilty, though, he looked a little pained, as if knowing what this looked like, and having no good defense, and already bracing himself for the backlash.

"... Argh!" Sakura snarled, whirling to face the little trio. "First that blonde bimbo, and now you!" She slapped her fist into her palm, but Sasuke's shoulder checked her before she could think about pouncing. How could he not be livid? She was livid! "I swear if you two ever put the moves on Naruto again ...! And _you_." Sakura pointed. Beni blinked. "I fixed your body, I can break it again!"

"Chill, I'm not interested." Sakura narrowed her eyes suspiciously; Beni chuckled weakly. "I don't date guys who are smaller than me."

Sakura huffed and crossed her arms. Naruto touched her shoulder, and made a little grimace. "Sakura-chan -- I didn't --"

"I know you didn't, but _he_ did!"

"Well, um, it's kind of his job..."

Turning to glare down Naruto with his stupid, undermining _honor_ and _facts_ that were getting in the way of her righteous anger, Sakura didn't understand what Sasuke was doing at first, when he stepped closer and touched her hip.

Then, as he lifted his prize in the air, she wondered how she had inherited one of Jin's hair.

Except it wasn't a hair. It was way too thin, floated more like spider-web, and almost entirely transparent.

... It also came from her pocket. The one where she'd stuffed their newly gained tokens. And as Sasuke gently tugged on the ... hair, strand, wire, the tokens slipped free, dangling from the sticky tip of the wire.

Kigane gave them a sheepish grin. "Hey, I had to try, right?"

+

Four copper tokens chimed in Sasuke's hand as he strolled casually in the general direction of the lighthouse in the distance. Sakura stomped along at his side, more than ready to leave the kunoichi team far, far behind. Naruto was still grinning in relief of not having been blamed, and she felt a little bad for that, for him thinking they trusted him so little.

"Sakura, Naruto, you still have yours?"

Sakura was pretty sure that if anyone had tried to get at her breasts, she would have noticed, but she checked for her personal token anyway, brushing her hand discreetly against the underside of her bra. She got a leer from Naruto for her trouble. "... I have mine."

Naruto tapped his forehead protector. "Got mine too. I'm gonna have a circle branded on my forehead in the end, I swear."

"Plus their three, plus that Rock ninja's... Only two more to get," Sasuke commented as he threw one new token each to his teammates. Sakura snatched hers up and turned away so that Naruto couldn't ogle as she slipped it in her bra. She'd forgotten Sasuke could, and she blushed, but at least the glance he snuck down her top was more discreet.

"Heh. We rule!" Naruto lifted a fist in victory, then slouched a little. "Still, I feel kind of evil, for ruining their chances like that. We shoulda targeted another team, one not from our village..."

"They deserved it for not knowing when to quit," Sakura growled. "We saved their skins and fixed them, and they still tried to trick us. There's a difference between being generous and being a sucker."

Sasuke shrugged. "They would have been eliminated anyway. Just with more blood."

"Hey, you don't know that," Naruto replied halfheartedly.

Sasuke rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Know what? If we end up with too many tokens, you're welcome to offer the surplus to random losers."

"Except it will mean more enemies for the tournament," Sakura commented. Naruto and Sasuke gave her a look like she was missing the point.

"That's bad how?"

"That's supposed to be bad?"

They blinked at each other and gave each other half-serious glares. Sakura sighed heavily and allowed them to lead the way. Men.

Now that she was a little less angry, she did feel slightly bad for snatching the token bag out of Kigane's hand and declaring it payment for use of Naruto, and for trying to fool them again after they'd gone out of their way to save their teammates' lives. Well, Beni probably wouldn't have died, but she would have gotten an infection and spent a few more weeks recovering, at the very least. And maybe the Rock guy would have only beat Jin up instead of gutting him... And Sakura was tired, and cranky, and hungry except she was also feeling slightly sick again. And pregnant. She felt pregnant, too, not that she would have had a clue how to describe it, whether it was a physical sensation or a passing mood brought about by another chemical imbalance or purely in her head.

She lifted a hand to her belly, felt for the almost invisible curve there. "... Hey, guys..."

Sasuke and Naruto paused and turned to look at her, puzzled by her soft tone.

"For a girl, what do you think of Nadeshiko?"


	5. Foxes (Naruto)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Name info: Nadeshiko: a type of fringed, pink flower; Soba: thin noodles; Miso: type of flavoring; -ko is a common feminine name ending; -hiko, -hito and -maru are masculine. (For reference: Sakura: cherry blossom; Hana: flower. Hana is the name I gave Sakura's mother for this fic. Naruto is a type of swirl-patterned fish cake often served in ramen.)

"Huh. There's a lot of foxes on this island."

The pungent scent was unmistakable. Naruto wrinkled his nose -- and then dodged hurriedly as a blade-tipped staff whizzed over his head, taking off an inch of blond hair.

Sasuke frowned and glanced at Naruto's stomach, both hands closed over his own adversary's fists. The girl spat some kind of poison at his face; he dropped low to the ground and kicked up, catching her under the chin. "What kind of foxes?"

"How should I know? They all smell the same to me." Rolling to the side, Naruto crouched and plucked a tuft of orange-red fur from a bush. "Low to the ground, so... Normal kind? Normal-sized at least."

"Hey, you mind paying attention to the fight?" his opponent complained, a hand on his hip. "What are you, an amateur zoologist?"

"Oops, sorry."

"I'll make you sorry!" The boy stood back, staff ready. "Beehive storm!"

"What kind of name is -- whoa!" Naruto stepped back hurriedly as the pointy end of the spear came at him, ten, twenty times, so fast it looked like a barrage of stingers to the eye.

"Why d'you care about foxes anyway?" his adversary asked as he stabbed away.

Naruto snorted. "Eh, no reason. I know it's --" he dodged hurriedly; "--not the kind of place you find elephants -- but I woulda expected -- whoa! -- weirder stuff -- I dunno, killer wasps -- cat-sized fire-lizards? Things."

"We saw a giant meat-eating armadillo, that count?" the boy with the spear asked as he tried to skewer Naruto again, though a little more slowly.

Twisting aside, Naruto deflected the blade with his kunai and grinned at his adversary. "Nice! Normal armadillos look weird already. Did it have fangs? Horns?"

They grunted in effort as they attacked each other again. This time Naruto knew how to stop the flow. He kicked the blade down to the ground -- it nicked his shin, and a few drops of blood flew -- and stepped on it. Then, whirling on his toes, he brought his foot down on the shaft, heel first. Wood splintered.

His opponent pulled the broken shaft free, unbalancing Naruto, who wobbled just enough that the first counterattack scythed over his head by pure blind luck. Naruto flailed and rolled to dodge the follow-up.

"Naruto, I know you're having fun but could you hurry up?" Sakura complained from where she stood, by a low, twisted tree just sturdy enough to tie her own opponent to the trunk. The boy sulked for all he was worth, his cheek a bright, swollen red where she'd backhanded him. From the corner of his eye, Naruto saw Sasuke dump the KOed girl across her teammate's legs.

"Aw geeze, okay, okay!" He shaped a hand seal, eyes narrowed. "Behold! My most terrible technique!"

The boy braced himself, expression fierce and a little alarmed.

"Sexy no jutsu!"

Poof.

It was cruel, cruel, cruel, to throw a naked babe at a thirteen-year-old.

It was even more cruel on the part of the thirteen-year-old not to even have working hormones yet. Well, not enough. "D-don't joke with me! _Beehive storm_!" 

He stabbed at Naruto, still woman-shaped. Naruto eeped cutely and fell on his tush.

"Got you! URAA!"

The broken spear plunged.

Naruko's long, shapely, bare leg flew up. Her delicate little foot planted itself right between her opponent's wide, shocked eyes and sent him flying head over heels.

Naruto dissipated the jutsu and jumped back on his feet. The boy was sprawled on his back, and didn't try to get up again. Feeling his shoulder where the broken tip of the spear had torn his shirt and left behind a bloody furrow, Naruto turned around to check on his teammates.

Sasuke and Sakura were staring at him like they were thinking of finishing the job. Naruto rubbed his neck and grinned. "What? My legs have more reach like that."

"... True blonde..." the boy mumbled dazedly from the ground.

His friend who was currently tied up glared at Naruto, all the contempt in the world in his pointy little face. "That's your ultimate technique?"

Naruto huffed and leaned over his dizzy opponent to tie him up and search his pockets. "Hey! I beat a Hokage with that, I'll have you know. ... Aw, no token."

"Me neither," Sakura said, as she finished searching Sasuke's adversary. The girl was still unconscious; Sakura tested her heartbeat and pupils as Naruto dragged the third guy to sit with his teammates.

In the end, nothing could be gleaned from any of them, all three of their tokens having been stolen by some other group a little while ago. Frustrating, since Team Seven had wasted about half the day on those kids, but hey, what could they do. The ropes weren't that tight; the kids would get free soon enough. Naruto sniffed the wind, reformed two Kage Bunshins to guard their flanks and watch out for trouble, Sasuke picked a direction, and they walked away from the trio, in search of a team to steal those elusive last tokens from.

"Hey, I got a name idea! What about Ramenko?"

"... No."

"Misoko?"

" _No_."

"Sobako?"

"Damn it, you ate two hours ago. You're not naming our potential daughter after food because you couldn't be bothered to buy snacks when you still could."

"I think we have to set down ground rules about baby names," Sasuke said.

Sakura blinked. "Hm? Like what?"

"What's acceptable or not, mostly." He threw Naruto a faintly mocking smirk; Naruto scowled in wary confusion. "No ramen-based names."

"Wha --"

"In favor," Sakura replied without missing a beat.

The corner of Sasuke's mouth quirked up. "Motion passed."

Naruto stared at them both in turn, cheeks puffed up in annoyance. Sasuke gave him a look he probably thought was deadpan, but was in fact still bastardly amused; Sakura was trying to smother a laugh behind her hand. "Hey! Come on, guys, that's not fair. Ramenmaru would be a totally bitchin' name!"

Sakura's eyes narrowed. "I believe we've already had this conversation."

Naruto grumbled and gave them a half-serious glare-pout. "Fine, but then I get to set rules too. No flower names, hah!"

Sakura put both hands on her hips and made a face at him. "What do you have against flower names? It's a family tradition, I'll have you know."

"Is it?" Sasuke asked, arching an eyebrow.

Sakura briefly looked sheepish. "Well, it's only been two generations. But it _could_ be."

"Well yeah, but your mom is 'flower' in general and you're 'one kind of flower'; if you keep getting more specific, what's the kid gonna be called next? Stem? Pistil?"

Sakura pouted. "Kahen -- petal -- it could work. Besides there are many very pretty flower names."

"I don't know for you, but if I'd been named after some sissy flower I'd have become a hermit at age five," Naruto drawled, crossing his arms behind his head casually.

Sakura bristled. "Oh, because being named for a ramen ingredient is any better?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, though Naruto could see he was laughing at them inside. "Compromise. If it's a girl, flower-based names are acceptable; if it's a boy, they aren't. Easy."

Sakura was still frowning a bit. "Fine. But I get veto rights on everything."

"Oi! How come?"

"Because I'm pregnant and you're not. But I'm sure I could come up with some kind of medical jutsu to fix that."

Ghhk. Naruto pressed his thighs together and shuffled a few steps back. Sakura crossed her arms sulkily.

Sasuke was absolutely no help, of course. He was doing his 'my-face-is-made-of-stone-but-I-might-be-laughing-at-you-behind-it- _but-you-will-never-know'_ thing again.

"How about tree names for a boy?" Naruto said, as a peace offering.

Sakura blinked at him with some surprise, and seemed to be considering.

"...It better not be a sissy tree, is all I'm saying."

"Oh, shut up."

Sakura shoved him halfheartedly, and Naruto pretended to stumble, laughing. He bumped into Sasuke, expecting a sarcastic comment or a shove in the other direction, but Sasuke only pushed him enough to get him back properly upright. Naruto blinked and then squinted at him.

"Okay, what's got you depressed now."

"I'm not depressed." Sasuke glared a little; Naruto didn't believe it. "... I'm thinking, that's all -- wait, you wouldn't know what that's like."

"Oh hah hah. That was old when we were twelve, man. What are you brooding about?"

"I'm _not_ brooding. Drop it already."

Naruto's face scrunched up in fake horrified sadness and he threw an arm around Sasuke's neck. "Don't tell me you really had your heart set on naming our unborn son Marigold."

Sasuke rolled his eyes, but some of the inward-looking vagueness in his eyes faded, reassuring Naruto. He never liked it when Sasuke thought too much about depressing things. Then he'd get pissy because he couldn't find anything else to do about his worries and push his lovers away and sulk like a bitch.

Sakura slowed down and moved to Sasuke's other side, peering at him. Sasuke looked away, as if he were considering ignoring her and running away from all their well-meaning worrywartiness. Naruto secured his hold, just in case.

Sakura's voice was soft, a little sad. "Would you want to name him or her after... someone?"

Sasuke's put-upon expression melted away, and he met Sakura's eyes with a solemn look of his own.

"... Maybe your parents?" she said.

Naruto blinked when he finally understood. "Huh? People do that? That's a bit weird, isn't it?"

Sasuke tensed under his arm and leaned away from him slightly. Naruto winced, and didn't let go. If Sasuke got away now he'd never stop sulking.

"Lots of people are named for someone -- or something -- meaningful," Sakura intervened, scowling at him for being insensitive. "Naming a child isn't just about what sounds pretty."

Naruto grimaced at her a little. He hadn't meant it like that. "Maybe it should be," he said back, and then realized it sounded kind of like he was looking for a fight. He softened his tone, his eyes never looking away from Sasuke's angry ones. "No -- listen, I just mean, it's not a bad idea in general, but... Wouldn't the kid wonder if they're supposed to be a replacement?"

From the flinch and the way Sasuke's fists clenched, Naruto could see that Sasuke didn't like hearing that much -- but also that he could see his point, however reluctantly. Naruto nudged him a bit, trying to find the words to make it better.

He didn't, so he just nudged Sasuke again.

"... You're right," Sasuke admitted, choking a little on the words. He looked away then, not quite at Sakura either. "It would be too much baggage to saddle the child with."

Naruto smiled then. "Yeah. A brand-new person. No baggage allowed."

Sakura smiled a little wetly and slipped her arm around Sasuke's waist, hugging him. Sasuke sighed. "You two are so clingy."

Naruto noticed Sasuke wrapped an arm around Sakura's waist right back nonetheless, and let Naruto lean on him, allowing himself a few seconds of sappiness before he shrugged them both into giving him back his personal space. Naruto obliged, allowing his arm to slip away from Sasuke's shoulders, but really just because it would be stupid to be too entangled to fight back if they were attacked now.

"Hey, we can always badger our children into choosing who our grandchildren get to be named after."

"... Naruto, don't talk about grandchildren now."

If it had been anyone else, Naruto would have said they sounded a little faint, but of _course_ Sasuke did not. Yeah right. Now Sasuke didn't look vaguely depressed anymore, he looked overwhelmed; but Naruto thought worrying about the future was still better than brooding about the past.

"Traditional clan names are probably okay, though, right? As long as they sound nice. We don't want the kid to be laughed out of the schoolyard."

Sakura grimaced at him behind Sasuke's head and mouthed silently _'Leave it alone already.'_ Naruto blinked, and realized Sasuke had gone straight through overwhelmed into seasick.

It was just too tempting to pass up.

"Hey, bastard?"

"What?"

Naruto allowed himself a grin of amusement about the fact that 'bastard' was now so much of Sasuke's official nickname that he didn't even blink twice anymore. Granted, it would also depend a lot on the tone of Naruto's voice when he said it. "You get to be the get-off-my-lawn grandpa. I'll be better at the candy-giving one."

Sasuke's reaction was a mix of annoyance -- expected -- and cringing frustration -- definitely unexpected. " _Don't_ \--" He breathed out, and glared, but it didn't make his first word sound any less pleading. "You're a real pain in the ass."

...Now he felt a little bad, for teasing Sasuke when he was feeling vulnerable. He should probably have encouraged Sasuke to open up more by being attentive and supportive and stuff, but he didn't have a clue how to do that without looking stupid or making Sasuke clam up. At least, if he teased Sasuke, having him clam up as a result would be deliberate.

"Don't what?" Sakura asked softly.

Sasuke glanced at her, and then glared at his shoes. "... Nothing. Look, there's animal tracks, let's find some food."

He went up ahead, bouncing over a rock and quickly out of sight; Naruto slumped guiltily. Sakura gave him a little glare but it soon melted away; she stepped up to him and bumped him with her shoulder.

"I don't think he's angry, just..." She paused to find the right word. "Unnerved."

"But having a family is great!"

Sakura nodded. "Yes. He thinks so too, you know that. I think that's the problem. Maybe he's just afraid to jinx it."

Naruto wrapped an arm around Sakura's back and hugged her to his side briefly, sighing in her hair. It made sense, now that he thought of it. It was more scary to have the potential of something good than to have nothing at all. Then you got to be scared of everything that could make it not happen. When you had nothing and expected nothing, there was nothing to lose, not even hope.

"...Our boyfriend is a freak."

Sakura gave him a crooked smirk and prodded him in the chest with a hard finger. "Like you can talk, ramen-boy."

"Hey, my liking of ramen is perfectly normal and healthy. Ramen is great, AND it's nutritious and filling."

Sakura gave him a dubiously cocked eyebrow. "I don't think you want to argue nutritional values with me. You'll lose." She flipped her hair and started jogging after Sasuke.

"It's not my fault they don't make fruit ramen!"

Since they were going hunting and not passively waiting for someone to attack them, Naruto dissipated the bunshins. They'd seen nothing but rocks and thorny bushes and more rocks. He could have spared himself the expense of chakra -- but then again they wouldn't have had that conversation.

The area smelled like rabbits and that weird miniature island deer, a few small predators, and a lot of lizards, so when they followed Sasuke down a hollow and found a little stream at the bottom, half-hidden by tall ferns, he wasn't too surprised. Sakura tested the water and then she and Sasuke refilled the flasks. Naruto watched the area. The hollow was greener than the rest of the island so far, the plants higher; a few of the trees even managed to reach about Jiraiya's height. Which was kind of ridiculously stunted for a tree, but on that island it was still damn high.

 _Good hunting here_ , he thought. Well... Rabbits, mostly. But much better than elsewhere.

"It's getting late," Sakura commented. "Should we camp here?"

Sasuke grimaced. "We can, but tomorrow we'll have to go straight to the tower."

By this point the surrounding area would be full of enemies lying in wait... "It's not as if we've had any luck finding our last two tokens out here," Naruto grumbled. "I say we just run at them and smash right through."

Sakura huffed. "You would."

"We'll have to go through them to get to the watchtower regardless," Sasuke said. "Might as well get some other use out of them."

"And if we don't fall into a trap?"

"Then we make one. Or look for a Jounin to steal from."

Judging by Sasuke's decisive tone, he'd managed to find his footing again. That or repress like crazy. Business as usual. Naruto was almost sad.

Naruto took in the place and considered. The slopes weren't steep enough to keep game boxed in if he tried to flush them at his teammates, so...

"What are you grinning about?" Sakura asked, looking faintly worried.

Naruto realized he was doing a happy shark impression and immediately looked sheepish. "Haha, nothing, I just realized I'm gonna have to crawl around in the bushes to hunt. It's kind of fun. You know, stalk your prey and chase and..."

Sakura's worry didn't seem to be getting much better. Naruto sighed, shoulders slumping.

"Or I could just put up some snares."

"I'll come with you," she said. "Your traps are horrible."

Well, it was funnier to catch them with his own teeth. ... Hands. With his hands. Naruto shivered. _'Hey Kyuubi, you here?'_

"--Naruto?"

"Uh -- sorry, distracted. Alright, if you insist..."

"And you, Sasuke-kun?"

He shrugged. "I'll set the camp. Just go."

"We'll climb around the outside and come back toward you, maybe something will run your way," Sakura said. Sasuke just waved them off and crouched to start digging a fire pit.

They went in silence, uphill and around, Naruto with his eyes half-closed and the wings of his nose fluttering as he caught the fresh scent of prey. Rabbits, yes, lots of them. Smaller rodents, too, but those didn't feed much unless you caught a lot, and that was a waste of time and looked rather pitiful to boot.

The bushes and plants weren't very tall, but they were densely entangled. Naruto saw a couple of what he suspected to be deer paths, but the rest seemed at first sight to be a solid block of bramble-bound greenery. Grinning, he fell into a crouch and looked for a crack to crawl in.

He was bigger than quite a few predators around the island, but there were the huge lizards to take into account, and the deer made openings too. He forgot Sakura at first, delighted by the grass and leaves surrounding him, hiding him from view. It was tempting to just find a burrow and lie in wait for the next rabbit. But he was too impatient to wait long, and there were too many scents to explore. And he had to bring food back to his mates anyway.

"...Naruto?"

Naruto jumped a little, and grinned at Sakura over his shoulder for reassurance. It didn't seem to work very much; he saw her swallow and wince.

"Don't go all foxlike on me... Please?"

It was the please that did him in. Naruto sighed, anticipation simmering down. "Sorry. Look, there's a burrow here."

She looked down at her hands, at the string coiled there, not making a move to set up a snare. "No, I'm sorry, I mean -- it's totally harmless, right? I know that. But it's just that it feels a little weird when you ... stop talking."

Naruto quirked up the corner of his mouth in a rueful half-smile and plucked a leaf out of her hair gently. Hunting meant he should stay quiet -- and strangely enough, when he was tracking something it really wasn't hard. But they weren't really hunting, they were just setting traps. Granted, if something was flushed out under his nose he'd go for it, but... Yeah. "You really sure you want me to just babble whatever goes through my head?"

Sakura threw him an exaggeratedly wary look, and then sighed, sobering up. "... Alright, do whatever you want."

But he was pretty sure that doing that would weird her out again. It should have weirded him out too, how at home he felt in the thicket, but it was hard to fret when there were so many fascinating scents just asking to be untangled and paths needing explored. So he watched her slim fingers as they flew through a series of complicated knots, balancing a rock here, bending a branch just barely off the edge of snapping there, and tried not to wonder too hard whether he would catch something if he threw himself on his stomach and stuffed his arm as deep down the burrow as it could go.

"Do you want to try? It's not hard, you just hold the string like this and... Naruto?"

Naruto blinked and looked up at Sakura's face. "Ah, it's okay. I don't have your tiny fingers."

"My fingers are not tiny. And yours aren't that big anyway. And -- Naruto..."

"Hm?"

She was chewing on her lip again. "... I'm sorry."

Naruto ruffled the hair at the back of his head and grinned. "About what? It's okay, I mean, you're right it's freaky--"

Her stricken expression stopped him cold, left him confused.

"Did... Did Sasuke-kun tell--"

\-- Oh. "No, no, he didn't tell me, he -- I just remembered later. I mean usually I'm pretty gone when I'm sleepwalking, but that time I wasn't as much, and it was kind of a weird state, kinda floaty, you know, but -- yeah, so. I remembered on my own."

She seemed at a loss for words, mortified and guilty, and he cursed himself for being so stupid as to tell her he'd overheard. She'd been confiding in Sasuke, and -- well, he was the one they'd been talking about in the first place, but there was a reason Sakura didn't want to tell Naruto himself.

"Sakura-chan..." He leaned closer, raised a hand to caress her hair softly, unsure that this was the right kind of approach. "It's alright. I'm not angry. I mean -- I get so used to the whole Kyuubi mess that sometimes I don't even know what I'd be like if he wasn't there. But --"

She shook her head no, teeth worrying at her lower lip. "If you don't have a problem with it, then why should I? It's so -- selfish -- narrow-minded..."

"What?" he blurted out, confused. Where on Earth did that come from?

"He's a part of you now, right? I should just accept that. Sasuke-kun doesn't even blink, and yet I..."

"I thought we decided Sasuke is a total freak," Naruto countered, trying to inject some humor in his voice. "Don't beat yourself up because you don't react like him, okay? I mean, he's from a clan of weirdoes who can grow more pupils, what does he care if mine get kinda cat-shaped, right?"

Sakura seemed even more miserable. "... But he accepts that part of you."

And she didn't; she didn't say it, but it was on the tip of her tongue and they both knew it. Naruto's shoulders sagged, and he swallowed a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. Yeah. There was that.

"I still don't think it's fair to compare the two of you like that. I mean, he's -- he's Sasuke, you know? And you're you. You aren't the same people, so of course you're not gonna react the same way. I'm not angry at you, I promise, so--"

Sakura placed a hand on his mouth to cover his strained smile. She looked up at him then, but to him it still seemed like it wouldn't take a lot more to make her cry. "Maybe, but you're hurt. I didn't want to hurt you."

He kissed her palm, his hand covering hers, and gently guided it off his face. "You know, Sakura-chan, you fret _way_ too much. Why does it freak you out so much anyway? I mean okay, it looks weird, but why does it get to you so much? Are you, uh, worried Kyuubi's gonna take over or something?"

She frowned, shook her head no slowly. "...I... Maybe a little. Not very."

"Hm. So... Are you scared for the baby, what it means for him or her?"

Seeing Sakura's startled face, he'd just managed to give her another worry.

"No, that's not it. It's -- it's about you. It's not about the baby or me." Her fingers clenched around his own and Naruto watched the realization bloom on her face. "... I'm afraid it will get worse and you'll stay stuck like that."

"Sakura-chan, I'm not gonna--"

"And you won't notice," she interrupted him; "but --little by little -- you'll be gone. Naruto'll be gone."

She shuddered; the rest of her words came out as a rush.

"And there will be that fox _thing_ in Naruto's body, who just sniffs things and hunts and goes into heat, and oh, it will still hang around and cuddle up at night, but -- it will be like living with someone who has brain damage. It's still the same face, but it's empty behind their eyes because some part of them is _lost_!" She looked up at him, eyes huge and scared. "And you-Naruto can never chat or plan out a mission or prank Kakashi-sensei again -- or tell me you l-- You l--"

"I love you," he blurted out. He didn't even think; he pulled Sakura on his lap, crushed her against his chest, hugging hard and tight, and her hands shook a little when she clenched them in his shirt.

"I love you, love you, love you. And it's never gonna happen because I don't want it to. Man, I need my brain to raise our kid or she'll go around sniffing her buddies' diapers in preschool. And then when she grows up she'll hate our guts because the boy of her dreams calls her the butt-sniffer and it will be _horrible_ , worse than war or cholera."

Sakura choked, or maybe that was a laugh. She hugged him a little harder, pressing her cheek against his neck, head bowed. "... I'm sorry, I know I'm being stupid..."

"You're not stupid at all," Naruto said softly, a hand cupping the back of her head. "It was really scary when I started waking up in weird places and having strange dreams. I -- kinda thought about that kind of stuff, too. Not being myself anymore." He smiled a little; his pride hurt from admitting to thinking so much he'd scared himself. "But it's been years and I haven't gotten that much more brain-dead or anything... Right?"

Sakura sighed and nodded, straightening up, and he missed her warmth against his upper body a little bit. She didn't move off his lap, though, allowing him to keep his arms around her.

"But it keeps happening and no one really knows why. I asked."

"So find that out," he suggested, the solution so evident he didn't understand why neither of them had thought of it before. "I mean, Jiraiya is all about the seal does this and the seal doesn't do that, but hey, it's not _his_ seal. And he knows more about the chakra side and the possession side than what it's doing to my brain. Besides he's a writer, not a shrink, that's not the same way to know people. Maybe there's some kind of influence he missed that would explain the foxiness. Maybe you'd feel better knowing all the gritty details. Then you wouldn't have to worry about what it _could_ do."

Sakura closed her eyes as she considered it; Naruto watched her. She seemed less tense already, provided with an outlet for her worries. "... It would be a lot of work."

"Well, yeah." Naruto wasn't sure she minded, though. He knew Sakura liked keeping busy and her brain stimulated.

"And I can't get started before we're done with the Chuunin tests anyway." She frowned then, brisk and professional once again. Naruto grinned.

"Hey, I'm not gonna blow up in one lousy little month. The sleepwalking's been tapering off for a while now. And it started when I was, what, thirteen? Fourteen? You've got lots of time." He gave her a suspicious look. "It's not like you have to throw yourself at it, right? Just take it slow. The way it's going, we've got _years_."

"You _think_ we've got years," she rectified, but it was stern more than worried. 

Also, she was still on his lap. So he kissed her nose. Sakura's cheeks reddened slightly and she pouted a little, which only prompted him to kiss her on the lips. Seeing her mollified, he leaned in for another, slower kiss...

For a second, she met him, lips parting under his own; and then she tensed up and looked around quickly. "Oh crap! I can't _believe_ myself. What if someone came and attacked us?"

Naruto grimaced at the reminder. Damn it! "Aw, we're in the middle of a thicket, we'd have heard them..."

"And maybe not!" She squirmed out of his lap. "Damn it, how stupid--"

Naruto wanted to feel guilty, but he couldn't get past his feeling that he would have known. His senses were still running high, tracking the faint sounds and smells all around; the idea that someone might have gotten the drop on him seemed ludicrous. But for all he knew that deep-rooted sense of self-confidence was totally wrong.

"And it's getting late and we still haven't caught anything, and the traps might take _hours_ or _days_ to bring anything in..."

Naruto perked up. "Or we could rush through and herd something Sasuke's way." A chance to give chase to something! His skin tingled. Ohh, yes. Yes yes yes. ...Oh. Right. "...I might go a little foxy again. Is that okay?"

Sakura hesitated. Naruto waited, stomach clenching.

"... Yes. Alright. Yes." She managed a brave smile, squaring her shoulders. "Okay. Let's hunt."

+

They burst out of the bushes at a dead run, chest angled low, on the edge of balance. The small tusked deer veered hard to the left when it ended up out of cover, but Sakura veered with it and a kunai flashed out of her hand. The deer tumbled, back leg spraying blood on the grass; Naruto was on it the next second. They rolled down the riverbank, once, twice -- then his claws found purchase in its jaws and he twisted until its neck broke.

He sat straddling his kill, grinning toothily, as Sakura let her momentum take her down the slope to join him.

When Naruto looked up through the reeds, Sasuke was watching them, knee-deep in the stream, his hand still resting on the shuriken holster strapped to his thigh. Naruto snorted; he kept grinning, with fangs and all. "Poor widdle Sasuke-chan, did we startle you?"

Sasuke snorted and turned his back on them. "Idiots. Both of you."

Naruto expected Sakura to sober up and remember she'd been uneasy, still was a little; but instead she grinned, cheeks still flushed from their wild run. He kind of wanted to kiss her again, and give her windblown hair another reason to look that mussed.

"Sorry, Sasuke-kun." She nudged Naruto, who moved off the deer willingly enough, and crouched to start butchering the animal. "You should have come, it was fun!" she commented with determined good cheer. "We should run together more often."

Sasuke grunted in apparent disinterest, as he cupped water in his hands and poured it down his back. That was when Naruto really noticed he was shirtless, and his pants were so soaked through they looked painted on.

"Whatcha doin?"

"Washing," Sasuke replied caustically, as he picked up a handful of sand. "You should try it sometime."

He still had his back turned. That was asking for it, really. Grinning, Naruto got rid of his jacket and crawled through the grass and the reeds, body low to the ground.

Sasuke kept looking unaware. From the corner of his eye Naruto saw Sakura open her mouth as if to berate him; he flashed her a pleading look, and she hesitated.

 _'Come on, fun,'_ he let her read on his lips.

Sakura sighed, and a smile grew on her face, reluctant at first and then amused. "... Say, Sasuke-kun, do you remember that Rock genin?"

... And now she was distracting Sasuke for him! Score. Hah, he'd always known Sakura secretly enjoyed it when he pranked the hell out of people. But she'd never cooperated when it was against Sasuke before. Naruto wiggled in happiness and sank in the water with barely a ripple.

"Which one?" Sasuke replied absently as he washed his shoulders. Wet hair clung to the back of his neck.

"Not the one with the sword, the one who did the water jutsu."

Naruto allowed the current to angle his body, and slowly pushed upstream with his hands and feet.

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Oh..."

Sakura paused, and Naruto glanced at her, worried that she was running out of inspiration. But instead she was concentrating on skinning the deer; she had blood up to her elbows but it didn't seem to bother her much. Naruto purred. He liked a woman who was so matter of fact about blood on her paws. _Hands_. Blah.

"I was just wondering if you saw the seals he was using?" she asked casually, glancing at Naruto in a very 'hurry up already' way. "Because if you still remember them, I wouldn't mind trying it out."

Sasuke was still washing. Naruto crept closer. "Hm. Seems like a taxing jutsu. I'll teach you the hand seals, but you might want to wait until after the test to practice. Naruto, I'll _kick you in the face_."

\--Aw shit! The surprise lost, his only advantage left was speed; Naruto lurched out of the water, going for a tackle. Sasuke would have, no doubt, whirled out of the way flawlessly, but the footing was treacherous, with all those loose mossy rocks. Naruto caught him in mid-turn. They landed with a loud splash, Sasuke on his hip and elbow, Naruto over him, limbs tangled together as they flailed to come out on top; the noise didn't cover Sakura's giggles.

Naruto got water up his nose and sneezed; hearing Sasuke cough, he decided to be generous and not dunk him again. The Uchiha glared somberly at him; the front of his hair was glued down over his face in a gelled curtain, and the back a forest of spikes that pointed in about every direction known to man and then some. Naruto snickered.

"You two are so childish," Sakura commented primly from the riverbank where she washed her hands.

Her tone must have been too serious, or otherwise transparent, because then she was the one Sasuke was throwing sulky glares at. "Just wait a minute and you'll see how childish I really am."

Sakura blinked, startled; Naruto didn't remember Sasuke play-threatening her before either, and he rather enjoyed her conflicting looks of alarm and amusement. But right now he was the one playing with Sasuke, so when the black-haired teen moved to get up, Naruto threw his arms around his neck from behind and pulled him back down.

"I've got him! Run, Sakura-chan!" he called as Sasuke fell back across his lap with another loud splash.

Sasuke squirmed, and his legs thrashed for purchase, but once again the moss denied him. Naruto laughed in his neck, feeling wet black hair against his face.

Sakura was very much not running, Naruto noticed, managing to spare a glance between two attempts to pin down Sasuke's arms. Frozen on her knees in the process of rising, she stared at the two of them with her lips parted. She still had deer blood up her arms like wet red sleeves, and a couple of flecks on her cheek. Naruto groaned and bit Sasuke's neck.

"-- _Naruto_." 

Naruto bit him again, over the dead mark of the curse seal. Sasuke's breath hitched, and his struggles slowed down, more of a token protest than a serious attempt to counterattack. Naruto growled softly, worrying the skin with his fangs. As pretty as it was, sometimes he hated that mark. The only marks Sasuke should carry were Naruto's.

His hands slid over Sasuke's wet skin, palms flat over his chest, fingers stretched, claws barely brushing; on the bank, Sakura started biting her lower lip, transfixed. She looked -- a little jealous, perhaps, but aroused. Naruto kissed the reddened skin around the dark tattoo, nosed through damp locks of hair. "She likes watching," he murmured.

Sasuke tensed in his arms and let out a soft groan. "Now is not the time."

"For what?" Naruto's hands ran over Sasuke's chest, his shoulders, palming his nipples almost by accident. "I'm just helping wash you."

Sasuke growled -- groaned? hard to tell -- and pulled away from him. "Not _now_ , I said. I'm not having sex with anyone during the test and that's final." He frowned at Naruto over his shoulder. "I'm serious."

He looked like it, too. Naruto gave a short sigh and glanced over at Sakura. Blushing, she hurriedly climbed to her feet, rubbing her hands dry on her skirt and not noticing she left blood-pink tracks behind.

"Ah -- yes, he's right, and we don't even have perimeter alarms set anyway --"

"I set them up," Sasuke commented laconically as he stepped away. "But it's still not a reason."

... Augh! Unfair. And now Sakura was busying herself with the deer and the fire pit, taking good care not to look their way. Naruto huffed, glaring at his back from his seat in the stream. Sasuke picked up a handful of sand and started scrubbing like he couldn't care less. Damn him, no matter that he was right. _Especially_ since he was right!

Naruto sighed and got up, wobbling a little on the wet rocks. His pants were drenched, sticking to his skin. What a downer.

"Hey... How about I wash your back and you wash mine?" Sasuke looked suspicious, but Naruto sighed. "No, I won't feel you up, promise." He just wanted to touch skin right now; it was too brutal a crash otherwise, from the tingling high of anticipation to this distance.

"... Fine. But if your hands wander..." Sasuke didn't complete his sentence; it was clear enough.

Naruto gave him a wounded, irritated look. "Told you I wouldn't. Where's the sand?" He moved closer to Sasuke, looking between the rocks for the patch of sand he was using.

His skin still prickled with the hunt, and the mock-fight, and the desire. He raised his hands, rested them on Sasuke's back, feeling muscles under the skin, and hairline-fine scars and a couple of tiny pinpricks. Sasuke healed well. Naruto wanted to scar him. He just closed his eyes briefly, breathed in and out, and started rubbing, fingers digging into tense muscles, palms rubbing sand to scour the skin.

"Why'd you keep your pants?" he asked; he didn't really care apart from the fact that it blocked his view, but if he didn't find something to talk about he might end up doing something stupid and have to deal with Sasuke's contempt.

It didn't matter how much he wanted sex, this was just no time and place, the end. He _knew_ that, he really did, but his body was still buzzing.

"... Like I wanted to be naked and weaponless if someone attacked the camp."

"Could have strapped the kunai sheath on anyway," Naruto suggested, and then groaned a little at the thought of a band of dark cloth wrapped around a bare thigh. Damn it.

"I don't fight naked."

"Heh, yeah, freeballin' ain't really..." Argh, argh, argh. What was wrong with him, was Kyuubi making him all horny again? He'd thought that would stop once he started getting booty regularly.

Naruto looked away from the bared nape and the wet dark strands, casting around for a safer topic. Sakura was done spitting the deer; she stood in the tall grass, hands knotted together over her chest, watching them with a kind of naked hunger in her eyes that was less sexual desire than need to belong, though it probably was both.

He was opening his mouth to suggest she help, but then a red-orange flash in the corner of his eye made him twitch around -- and there it was, in the middle of their encampment, a lanky old beast with Naruto's own prey in its jaw -- a thigh-high fox, the miniature deer's hooves trailing on the ground -- and three tails, a dirty _three-tails_ was stealing Naruto's prey!

 _He_ 'd hunted that deer for _his_ mates! It was their _dinner_! Outraged, Naruto snarled and threw himself out of the stream. The fox jumped for the bushes, eyes wide and ears flattened back in obvious panic. Yeah, let it panic! Hot on its tracks, he yelled an outraged challenge, words melding together and losing all meaning. A three-tails! Barely three! How could it even _dare_ \--

None of them had noticed where the stream ran to, a couple hundred meters down. The hollow twisted sharply to the left, cutting all view, and deepened into a startlingly green canyon. Under the dense tangle of plants, a couple of crumbled, caved-in manmade structures that must have been fortified hideouts some fifty years ago kept watch on the canyon.

When he ran between them in hot pursuit of the fox, Naruto hadn't really been expecting a wolf his height at the shoulder to burst out of the crumbled building and leap at him from behind.

The fangs missed him, but the beast's shoulder checked him, sending him rolling down the sharp slope. He clawed at the earth to slow his momentum; a rock caught him in the hip and he gritted his teeth.

Then something whistled through the air and he backflipped just in time to dodge a descending sharp length. A claw?

The wolf wore an oversized village headband as a collar.

"Ambush!" he screamed, to warn his teammates, but they'd already burst over the edge of the canyon after him; he caught a glimpse of movement, many furred bodies rushing at the two of them, and then he couldn't worry about them anymore. The air whistled again, and what was -- sword! Black, painted sword, leaving a burning trail across his chest.

Naruto snarled and clawed low, but he could only give himself enough space to retreat downhill, and then he was attacked again.

Girl, long black hair, dressed in dark and tan, and moving fast -- maybe even as fast as Sasuke. She blurred from sight, but he couldn't worry much because then the wolf jumped him again, maw gaping wide enough to swallow him in one bite. He had to get himself out of there, but there was no time to even shape one seal. He dodged the sword, rolled under the wolf's chest to put its mass between them, but it instantly whirled around as its mistress vaulted over its back, plunged sword first at Naruto, leaving him no way out.

A flurry of kunai tore through the air. The girl knocked a couple out of the air, but her wolf yelped in pain, jumping aside; Naruto dived through the opening and retreated hurriedly.

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled.

He looked for her where the kunai had come from; she'd moved on already, but her pink hair caught his eye not too far from there as she took cover behind a rock. The trees were pitiful; trunks no wider than his thigh and all twisted and stunted, shallow roots changing the ground into a series of snares and ankle-breaking hollows. Climbing on the trees themselves would get them nowhere; they were too small to put anyone out of reach of anything. The slope was awkward to boot, full of slippery dead leaves.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

He sent his clones all over the place, slipping unnoticed amongst them. Where were the other enemies? He couldn't see Sasuke. A clone burst behind him, then two, torn to shreds by wolf fangs.

There -- dark-skinned boy, Iruka-in-the-sun-all-summer shade contrasting sharply with his pale teal-green hair. He was staring in Sakura's general direction, hands clasped in a seal. Naruto pounced.

The world went weird in mid-leap, full of psychedelic colors, and he was losing his balance and his sense of directions, and shit, shit -- "Kai!" The forest snapped back into place, only to start crawling with a rush of mice. Amongst the mice ran cats and dogs and -- there! The three-tailed fox. Ignoring the carpet of squirming mice, he threw a kunai its way. The fox dodged behind a rock crawling with huge black rats. The mice were climbing Naruto's pant legs inside and out, and then something tackled him to the ground.

" _Kai_!" yelled Sakura, sitting on top of him. 

The mice were gone; he wasn't surprised. They hadn't smelled like anything anyway. He was two steps away from a nasty drop. At the other side of the canyon, the three-tails watched them. Naruto snarled, fangs bared. He was going to teach that mangy rat...!

"-- Where's Sasuke?" he remembered to ask, blinking to clear his sight. A few motes of light still danced in the corner of his vision.

Sakura moved off him, and they rolled to crouch back to back. "With the last one. Big guy, quarterstaff. You?"

A few of his clones rushed past, storming the rock behind which the green-haired guy was hiding. Wolf-girl was nowhere in sight. "Girl with a katana. Big wolf. Hella fast. This guy does genjutsu then?"

"He summons foxes too," Sakura commented somberly. "Seeing the wolf... Maybe they all summon."

"Shit, shit, they do," Naruto said in a rush. "He's that guy with the cat Kyuubi wanted to eat!"

Sakura muttered something unhappy between her clenched teeth and cracked her knuckles. "The girl is fast, Sasuke would do better. The big guy with the staff, brute force, for you. ...I'll manage the genjutsu type. Just find Sasuke and trade."

"I'm not leaving you," he protested. "Don't count on it."

But then there was a masculine voice, and muffled words calling out a technique, and it tugged inside him. He fell to a knee in the grass; for a second the sun seemed to wink out.

"Naruto?!" Sakura attempted to snap the genjutsu, but nothing really happened.

Naruto shook his head and climbed back on his feet. "S'okay, I'm fine -- shit!" Something was making short work of his remaining clones, two, three, seven -- and all gone. "They're coming. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Some of the clones surrounded Sakura so she could counter the genjutsu without being attacked; Naruto and the rest rushed up the slope.

Foxes ran down to meet them. Two three-tails, one much younger than the first thief, one dark-furred five-tails even, standing at the green-haired boy's side with blue foxfire dancing around its head, and a dozen normal foxes, knee-high little missiles, fast as cats and full of pointed teeth. They attached themselves to his clones' wrists, their legs, weighing them down; then the girl with the sword moved in, slashing through the clones with grim efficiency. Naruto moved to meet her, but she chose the other way, mowing down the crowd to get to Sakura.

Angry now, Naruto let loose a burst of chakra that sizzled fur, made most of the one-tail yelp and cower. Suddenly he had space to move -- but the wolf moved too, hackles raised, the white of its eyes showing in fear.

Now it was afraid for its mistress, and scared dogs were the most dangerous ones. Naruto snarled at it, trying to make it back off, but it refused to step away from the path to its mistress. And Sakura --

Heart in his throat, Naruto watched her tumble off the edge and disappear in the canyon.

He took a step forward; the wolf tried to eat his head. He punched it in the muzzle, sending its head snapping back, backhanded it again and raced past as it swayed dizzily. The black-haired girl had stopped at the edge and was peering down, checking for Sakura's body, and he was going to _kill_ her.

Then the ground shook, and the ledge broke off the slope and slipped down, bringing the swordswoman with it. Naruto hoped she'd get crushed to death, though he doubted that would happen. He found the closest stable rock and leaned over -- "Sakura-chan!?"

He found his teammate dangling by a rappelling wire from the side of the cliff, still swinging from the impact, hair and skin gray with dust. "I'm fine!" she called out between two coughs. "Careful about green guy!"

Naruto cast a wary look at the small trees and bushes, but he could see nothing. The smaller foxes had fled; the bigger ones were probably in hiding. The wolf growled at him but wouldn't move closer, still swaying dizzily on its huge paws. That was good, because at the moment Naruto wanted very much to bite its throat out, and he didn't care that his jaw was way too small to manage to get through its thick fur. The wolf seemed to believe he could. At the moment, so did Naruto.

Keeping an eye on the area, he found the end of the wire and pulled Sakura up. When he helped her over the edge, he saw her hand bleed in fat drops on the ground. She must have injured herself when she punched the cliff; her fingers were stiff and already swelling. "Sakura-chan?"

"She'll come back. I saw her jump to the other side. The canyon's not that wide."

Naruto growled in frustration. The summons he could deal with, but the genjutsu he couldn't; and Sakura could deal with the genjutsu, but the summons or the swordswoman would kill her. For that matter... Hn. The slices on his chest and shoulders were already closing, but they weren't exactly shallow, and they stung. "I'll get rid of her sword, then I can beat her." He wasn't sure how, but that was the only way. He hadn't seen another sword on her; kunai were easier to deal with, he would have more reach than she did.

Someone crested the top of the hill then, and for a moment Naruto's stomach constricted painfully; the newcomer was huge, seven feet tall and powerfully built, and wielded a thick metal-tipped staff. The worst thing was still that he wasn't Sasuke. But a second later, Sasuke followed, and Naruto relaxed a little. Bastard was doing fine, pressing the big guy back step by step.

The green-haired guy swore, racing to his friend's aid. Naruto took off after him, but he was downhill. He tried to throw a kunai to slow him down, but the five-tailed fox dogging his heels stared down at Naruto with strange silver eyes -- and then white fire raced through the woods like arrows, and then Naruto was burning.

It hurt, and yet it didn't. Fox illusion, the kind he could die from, if only he believed it enough. How _dare_ they -- such a blatant insult. He called a clone to him, curled chakra into their hands. Wind, he thought, and changed it like Kakashi-sensei had started teaching him, except perhaps too much, and too fast, and not quite stable enough.

The Rasengan exploded up the slope, uprooting and shredding trees, making dust, cut-up grass and leaves fly.

His arm was covered in a multitude of little razor-cuts curled around the limb, but they healed over before he could fully feel them, skin sizzling with orange chakra. The five-tails was slumped up on the ground in a puddle of blood. Naruto raced past its still body without checking how alive it still was. Its master mattered more. Naruto wasn't going to let him get to Sasuke.

At the top of the hill, the big guy had thrown a powder at Sasuke's face, but Sasuke breathed a gust of fire on it and kept advancing, faster now. The teal-haired guy yelled, "Kuchiyose!", voice almost panicked. (Something called Naruto, tugged at him again, but it wasn't Sakura or Sasuke's voice so he didn't listen.) Foxes jumped at Sasuke, trying to trip him up. How many of those could he call?!

Naruto lashed out -- no jutsu, nothing but raw chakra. The top of the slope exploded under the enemies and Sasuke's feet, making them stumble and skid down in a shower of loose earth. And there, close enough now. Their bastard looked none the worse for wear, as he measured Naruto up and then glanced behind him.

"Sakura?"

"I'm fine," she replied grimly, a couple of steps behind Naruto. He hadn't even been aware she was on his heels.

Naruto grinned, watching the two outnumbered enemies, caught between the three of them. Now, _now_ they were going to win.

The tall one looked faintly worried; the teal-haired one mostly looked coldly angry.

"Genjutsu won't work on mine," the tall one informed his companion quietly. They were so close, though, it was hard not to hear. Naruto snorted. Sometimes Sasuke's built-in abilities got on his nerves, but in cases like these he didn't find the Sharingan's omnipotence too bad. "Which one?"

The teal-haired one narrowed his eyes and stared straight into Naruto's. "Blond one. _Zenko, NOW_!"

She burst from the ground in a geyser of leaves, sword slashing at Sasuke's back. He saw her movement of course, whirled around to block her sword with a kunai. He'd manage, at least for a while. Naruto pulled out one of his own kunai and rushed the two male enemies.

The big guy had proven to be slow, and it was the fox guy Naruto was angry at. He dodged a swing of the quarterstaff, still tracking the green-haired guy, who shaped the same summoning seals again. Goddamnit he'd _eat_ the next fox who dared to pop up.

And then there was a big hand touching his bare shoulder, and things ground to a halt.

" _Sleep_ ," the tall teenager said softly. 

The world whirled around Naruto, around and around, twirled and danced and then jarred to a sudden stop. Oh. So dizzy. He'd lost the kunai somewhere and barely noticed. That was wrong, he knew, but his fingers seemed so far away.

The sky was so immense, purple and pink and beautiful, colors blurring together into dusk, and his eyelids weighed tons.

(The call came again, and again, and again.)

 _/If you insist,/_ Kyuubi purred; and the last thing Naruto felt before the creeping darkness swallowed him was his own lips stretching into a wide, predatory smile. 


	6. Rampage (Sakura)

"If that makes the Council feel better," she'd said back then, when they told her the condition to participate in the tournament. "I don't mind. To be frank, I like it better that way."

And she'd smiled at Tsunade-sama, and allowed them to place another flow-restrictive seal on the chakra pipeline between her and Naruto. Because even though she'd only been Tsunade's apprentice for a couple of weeks, already she felt stronger and more confident; and she didn't want the crutch of Naruto's chakra to be too easy to lean on. There were too many strings attached.

Chakra to feed the child, that was all she really asked for, and chakra to keep herself alive in case everything else failed, though it might burn her to death before it could do any good.

It burned now, molten metal in her belly, breaking past the damming seal, forcing its way through her coil system. She fell to her knees with a little gasp. Her first instinct was to resist the flow, but it would just end up bursting through anyway. Convert -- she needed to grab hold of it and convert it into something she could _use_ \-- but there was so much of it. 

_Sitting duck_ , she realized through the shock. _Move, move, move!_ She knew it had been too long; their enemies wouldn't have the decency to wait until she got a handle on the demon chakra flood. But holding it back was taking so much of her concentration. She allowed some chakra to slip through, pour up her spine and down her arms, through her skin, making her fingernails ache and her muscles clench, and she climbed back up on her feet and forced her eyes open.

The world was painfully bright at first, a hundred snapshots too vivid for her brain. Colors felt -- off. Not the right spectrum.

But not off enough to mix up red and blue.

Naruto's eyes weren't blue.

He was sitting where he'd fallen, only two steps away from Sakura. The enemy nin, the tall, broad one who'd touched him and made him fall like a puppet with a dead puppeteer, stared at him in disbelief. The other enemy, with the pale green hair, was swaying on his feet, dark skin turned grayish and eyes unfocused, all the hallmarks of severe chakra drain.

Not-Naruto smiled then, or smirked, or bared fangs maybe. "...Heh."

Red-gold chakra boiled over, covered his bare chest and poured down over his pants and onto the ground, blackening it. Sakura's belly pulsed painfully and the world seemed to dance under her, like trying to stand on a moving swing. She didn't know how she kept her footing; sheer stubbornness, maybe.

"Naruto!" she yelled, praying he would hear and put a stop to it.

He glanced at her over his shoulder, and threw his head back, and laughed. It wasn't even a cruel laugh, but deeply amused, like life was just that hilarious. It chilled her to the bone. It wasn't Naruto laughter at all.

"What the fuck--" the green-haired nin growled, and fished a couple of kunai out of his pouch with a hand that shook with exhaustion.

Naruto's head tilted slowly as he considered the two strangers. Sakura opened her mouth, closed it, swallowed. They were enemies... but it wasn't _war_. It was serious -- it was _important_ \-- but in the end it was just a test, just a way to see how every country measured up.

There would be no measuring up if she didn't do something. There would just be a very one-sided slaughter.

"No!" she snapped, trying to get their attention. The tall one threw her a wary look, listening, but the green-haired one seemed too angry to bother. "No! Just run away --"

Naruto laughed softly, with a rough, pleased voice that made her feel queasy. "Oh yes. Run."

And then everything just kind of happened together -- green-hair throwing the kunai and Sakura throwing herself at Naruto and Naruto throwing his hand out, and -- chakra, enough to liquefy metal in mid-flight, a paw of fire that stretched faster than her eye could see.

Blood sizzled, splashed the rocks; the big guy yelled, " _Kon_!", as his teammate was swatted away like a mosquito, body clawed open in four separate lines. Sakura fell to her knees. Something was trying to burn its way out of her belly.

"You'll kill the child!" she screamed, hands clenched on her stomach.

A tan-and-black blur raced to his fallen comrade and carried him away as Naruto turned to look at her. Sakura's body still burned all over, a deep ache spreading through her chakra system. _Convert, convert_ , she repeated to herself -- there should have been a seal to do that for her, but Kyuubi bursting through -- it wasn't there anymore. 

What other safeties had been torn away? Oh god -- the baby, the baby -- possessed, monstrous -- dying, burned alive inside her where it should have been safe --

"If it's so weak," he started with disdain, and she didn't think past the sudden rage. Naruto's head snapped to the side, cheek sliced open by her lengthening nails.

Panting, hand smarting where his chakra had sparked at her skin, she glared at the creature. Not Naruto, never Naruto -- they didn't even look alike, the demon's eyes a malevolent, narrowed red.

He lifted a hand to his already-healing cheek, and wiped the blood with his fingers, and licked them, his red eyes fixed onto her, and _she was going to die_. 

"Down!"

Sakura hit the ground. A blue and black shape flew over her head, crackling with lightning. Impact. Explosion. She rolled away, skidding down the slope. Crap, no, the canyon wasn't safe, she couldn't let herself fall. She dug her fingers into the earth and screamed again as her own weight tried to tear her long, curved nails out. She kept moving -- got her footing, scrambled up. Sasuke and Kyuubi were rushing at each other, crashing and then coming apart again.

The katana-wielding woman who had been sparring with Sasuke was crouching on a boulder, her long, black tail of hair singed at the end, watching the fight in utter confusion.

"Run already!" Sakura snarled at her as she reached the boulder.

"What?"

"He'll tear out your guts and dance in them if Sasuke can't hold him back!"

As her teammates rolled downhill, Sakura chanced a glance their way. Red-gold chakra still danced, burning Sasuke's skin whenever he darted close enough to strike -- burning inside her belly like an echo. Her fingers still ached, though the claws had stopped growing. She swallowed the bitter desire to go and help. She would only be a hindrance. Even Sasuke was barely fast enough to stay ahead of Kyuubi's harshest attacks. If she went, she would get in their way and die. Or get Sasuke killed -- even worse.

The whole valley shook, a cloud of dust racing her up the slope, overtaking her in a second. She couldn't hear the crackle of the Chidori over the roar of earth and rocks tumbling down the cliffs, and she coughed in the dust.

In a minute there wouldn't be a cliff left anymore -- no canyon, no slope, no bowl-shaped valley.

"What the hell is going on?" the enemy girl snarled as she burst out of the dust on Sakura's flank. The giant wolf followed, ears flat on his neck, the old, graying three-tailed fox dangling from his mouth like a cub.

The smaller foxes were like a wave of fur through the rocks, a torrent running upstream, nothing in their eyes but blind animal panic; Sakura almost tripped on one of them.

The ground was pulled out from under her feet like a carpet even as she ran, and she could see the trees lining up the edges of the basin slowly topple inwards. Rocks started rolling down, loose soil flowing and piling up in strange spurts, tripping her up. She didn't have _time_ to trip! 

"Run, run, run!"

Katana-girl and her wolf darted ahead of her. Through the smoke she could see a hulking shape, the tallest ninja struggling to carry his teammate.

"Ride!" the girl snapped, sending the wolf at them, but when the big guy tried to jump the earth slid out from under his feet and he landed on his knees. A green-haired head lolled bonelessly.

Sakura could already see Naruto's face when he woke up and found out he had gutted a guy, killed him. She veered to meet them, snatched a hold on the big guy's arm and heaved to get him back up. The katana girl's hand flew to her weapon, but she held herself back at the last moment and helped him clamber on, and then the wolf was bounding up, leaving the two girls behind.

Channeling chakra to her feet, Sakura kicked off and vaulted over a rock; she landed wrong, rolling and bruising her shoulder, but it didn't matter. She'd passed the most dangerous point of the landslide. There it was -- lower bushes, flatter ground, the sea wind.

"There!" Sakura pointed out; there were deep-rooted rocky formations straight ahead, a more solid shelter than bushes and unsteady earth.

Behind them the ground trembled and dust rose to block out the sun as the avalanche of earth hit the canyon and crumbled it closed.

She couldn't see her teammates. Bile in her throat, Sakura turned around to keep an eye on the enemy trio.

They were from Grass, she noticed without really caring, and they weren't paying much attention to her at the moment. The forehead protector was probably the only thing that had saved green-hair's eye from being clawed out; his artfully layered pretty-boy hair had been burned off on one side and a small cut on his brow bled profusely.

It was nothing compared to the exposed ribs and pierced abdomen muscles on the rest of him. Kyuubi hadn't missed his organs by much, and if he got an infection it would be irrelevant.

Sakura sent a ripple of soothing chakra through her belly, seeking the fetus, assuring herself that it was still living. It was, but that was all she could tell. She didn't know if it had been injured. Her control wasn't fine enough to tell; she would have to wait for Tsunade-sama to check. In the meantime there were other things that needed to be done.

She took a step forward. There was a snik-sound and then she had a long blade at her throat. The wolf snarled low in his throat at her. The white of his eyes was still showing. Sakura stilled. The animal's nerve might break first, and then no amount of logic and calm would help.

"Back off."

Sakura ground her teeth. "Listen, I'm trained as a medic--"

But on the ground where he'd laid down green-hair, the big guy was taking his glove off with steady professionalism. He had blood on his clothes, from his friend's wounds and from sharp cuts made from Sasuke's kunai no doubt -- but underneath the skin was whole. And then she understood that she and Sasuke had guessed wrong. Despite his bulk and the big quarterstaff he favored, he wasn't their heavy-hitter -- he was their medic-nin.

"We don't need your help, Leaf," the black-haired girl said, and her lips twisted in a cultured sneer that meant she was thinking worse.

Sakura's fists clenched and she glared, wishing nothing more than to punch her in the jaw. But the sword was still under her neck; and if the girl was fast enough to hold her own against Sasuke, even for a short time, then she was too fast for her.

Sasuke. Sakura needed to conserve her chakra for when she had to heal him, anyway. But. But.

Sakura stepped back out of reach and swung her fist at a close-by rock, so frustrated she could have screamed. What was she supposed to do? Go back, to watch the fight so she could intervene? Or -- no, make sure they got the hell out of the area first, and learn how to fix it.

"What the hell did you do to Naruto?"

The big guy didn't look up, hands gloved in green chakra, but he tilted his head toward her a little. "I didn't do _that_. Berserk fits -- that's not a trick I know."

"I know you didn't. What were you trying for? How do I fix it? You just -- touched him..." She narrowed her eyes. Just a touch, and Naruto had fallen. "... Medical jutsu, huh."

"Stop distracting him," katana-girl snapped.

"It's alright, Zenko." He paused, hands resting over his friend's ribs, feeling for breaks. "Yes. It goes directly for the nervous system -- used for surgery, where drugs would be metabolized too fast, temporarily closes the connection between mind and body so pain wouldn't wake them."

Oh _hell_. Just the thing -- the precise thing to get Kyuubi free from Naruto's control. Suppress Naruto's awareness in such a way that even his subconscious couldn't get in the way. And then -- no, she was still missing something... Otherwise Kyuubi would have been struggling for control every time Naruto got knocked out.

"I'd have to touch your teammate to fix it."

Sakura shook her head grimly. That... would take some doing. "How long does it take to wear off?"

"Eight hours. Ten."

Sakura clenched her fists, and twitched in surprise when her claws pierced her skin. She'd forgotten about them. "... That's not happening."

"What _is_ wrong with him anyway?"

Sakura hesitated. "--Botched experiment." Not too far from the truth. "Teach me how to wake him."

The big guy shook his head with what seemed to be honest regret. "It's a secret Grass Country exclusive."

"Your teammate, your mess," the girl -- Zenko -- added with another cold glare.

Sakura exploded. "Teach me how to wake him because if I don't he's going to track you down and he's going to kill you all -- there, is that good enough for you?!"

Sasuke was fighting. Kyuubi was -- not safe, but manageable, when Naruto was awake to rein him in if he got too far. But Naruto wasn't. Kyuubi was completely free to act for the first time in eighteen years. And she was hiding in the background again because she was still too weak even now, and they were refusing her the way to fix things, and -- shit!

"...Why would he?" Zenko asked, frowning as if she was starting to believe Sakura a little, despite herself.

"Because he's a predator," Sakura said quietly, desperate to convince them. "He's a sadistic predator who stalks and kills for fun. Rabbits aren't going to challenge him, and you three are the closest."

The girl straightened her back and snapped, "Maneki. Get Kon. We're moving out."

Sakura's mouth opened to protest.

"Can't stop healing now, Zen. I'll lose him." The green light intensified under Maneki's big hands, knitting muscle back together. There was still a large slice across green-hair's belly, organs visible underneath.

Sakura sneaked around Zenko and knelt on the other side of green-hair's body. "I'll help. Tell me how to wake up Naruto. I think -- he'll let me get close to him." Perhaps. If she played it right. If Kyuubi was in the right mood -- if he didn't want to punish her for clawing him up. If he underestimated her again.

She placed her hands over Maneki's; after a second of hesitation, he nodded imperceptibly. She concentrated her chakra and gave it to him.

For a moment it was difficult to purify her chakra so that it shone clear green and was suitable for medical jutsu. The raw demon chakra was still tainting her body, and it didn't want to twist that way. She spared a thought to wonder why she wasn't still being flooded by more... Perhaps the distance. It might happen again when she got back to wake Naruto. She had to be ready.

Behind her Zenko fumed, but she turned away on her heel to keep watch. The dust had settled.

"Are they still fighting?" Sakura asked; she couldn't turn to look.

"Can't see them."

Sakura swallowed nervously. Surely Sasuke wouldn't be caught under the landslide -- no, he had learned a couple of basic Doton techniques from Kakashi-sensei. He'd be okay.

The old three-tailed fox crawled closer and gave a long, grave look at his unconscious summoner. His front paws were almost shaped like hands, Sakura saw. One of them was broken -- crushed.

Then he looked up at Sakura and it clicked in her mind. Fox summon. Naruto unconscious, unable to wake up, and someone calling up foxes.

Someone calling up Kyuubi no Youko.

"We did not know," the fox said soberly. "We would not have been so foolish."

She shook her head, still amazed, her hands on Maneki's to offer more chakra. "But this isn't how summoning works. You call up a specific individual, not just ... call."

The green-haired boy muttered something that sounded like "Goddamn Leaf." He cracked an eye open and glared fuzzily. "Old man... shut up."

"Trade secret, huh?" Sakura retorted, rolling her eyes at him. An area summoning, calling up local animals, instead of targeting and displacing an individual beast no matter how far away it was? She'd never heard the thing might be possible. Just their luck.

She took her hands off Maneki's as he finished up. He started closing another, more shallow slice, one that still dug into the muscle but didn't bare Kon's organs to view; Sakura sat back and frowned down at the wounded boy.

"Piece of advice for you -- don't summon again. He'll find you."

Maneki glanced at her and blinked. "Wait. Your ... experiment. He's some kind of _fox_?"

Sakura shrugged, not meeting his eyes. It wasn't like the village heads didn't know who was the demon bearer for Kyuubi; it didn't matter much if she let that info slip. She didn't want that idiot to light up another 'come and get me' signal flare. What if it worked anytime Naruto took a nap?

...Oh. Was that why he'd started sleepwalking again?

Not the right moment to ponder that question. "So. You told me you'd explain how to stop him."

Zenko glowered for a second before turning pointedly away. Maneki nodded as he gathered his thoughts, still working on his teammate's cut. "How are you with the nervous system?"

"... I'm... not." Sakura looked away, embarrassed; but Sasuke and Naruto needed her, so she lifted her chin and stared him down. "Haven't started on it yet. But if you show me, I'll get it." Sakura looked down at the old fox. "I'm not about to let Maneki-san knock me out, though. Do you mind if he demonstrates with you?"

The three-tailed fox nodded his grey-tinged head. "If it keeps the great one from his revenge, I will accept. Maneki-kun?"

Maneki finished reattaching the muscles and sighed. "Fine. I'll try to show you how to stop him."

"Mmh. Do show her," Kyuubi purred from his comfortable sprawl on a tall rock, on the opposite direction from the ex-valley.

Zenko's hands flew to her pouches before Sakura could even fully realize what Kyuubi being here -- lounging, _not fighting_ \-- meant. A handful of kunai flew at him. He didn't bother to deflect them; he inclined his head out of the way, and allowed another two blades to slice through the meat of his shoulder and upper arm. 

Then the wounds sizzled closed.

"You aim like shit," he said with dark amusement.

Sakura threw herself at Zenko and tackled her out of the way as a whip of red chakra slashed the air.

Kyuubi growled softly, raked his claws over the rock he lounged on, leaving gouges, and gave Sakura a displeased look. "Bitch, stop getting in the way."

Sakura's belly pulsed painfully and she clenched a hand over the seal inked on her skin. It felt red-hot through the cloth.

"Get off me!" Zenko kicked her off and leaped back to her feet. "I'll just get his heart--"

"I do not think it will work," the old fox said with quiet desperation.

"He's right, it really won't," Sakura said hurriedly. She didn't have a clue, actually -- but he healed so fast, he'd probably fix himself the second the blade came out. Probably. She wasn't going to bet on it. She didn't want Naruto to die.

She didn't want Naruto to die. She'd rather allow Kyuubi to rampage than kill Naruto. Even though he might never forgive her.

Sakura shook her head and clenched her fists, nicking herself with the claws. It didn't matter; the slices were shallow and she was better with fists than with open hands. She couldn't just give up yet; there had to be ways to stop him, even though she couldn't think of one right now with the pressure of his chakra and murderous intent all around --

Escape, she remembered Kakashi saying. Escape, regroup. _Then_ plan.

But she couldn't. Because -- "Where is Sasuke?"

Kyuubi gave an uncaring shrug, not even gracing her with a glance.

Sakura stiffened in rage. "What the _hell_ have you done to Sasuke?!"

Kyuubi growled at her, upper lip curling to bare a thick fang. "Stop screeching. You don't need a tongue to be useful to me."

The threat made her pause. Not very long. "... Where is Sasuke," she repeated, as steady as she could. He couldn't be dead, he just couldn't. There was no way he would have been killed. Especially not in such a short time.

She didn't give a damn about any sleep jutsu, Naruto would have woken up. There was just no way.

Kyuubi's eyes slid away from her like she wasn't worth his attention, taking in the katana in the other girl's hand, the wounded man on the ground, the medic-nin in his combat stance over the wounded boy, the summons. The old fox was so flat on the ground he looked like a moth-eaten carpet.

Kyuubi sniffed the air, Naruto's nose and Naruto's face but the body language was so wrong. "... You're the one with the cat." he said, looking straight at Maneki. "Hm. Might as well start with you."

She saw Maneki twitch back as if to dodge, and then glance down at his wounded friend, and she realized he was going to stand his ground. Because if he ran and Kyuubi switched targets then there would be no one in range to stop him.

She started to move -- couldn't take a second step. Maneki had thrown a handful of kunai to slow Kyuubi down, and Kyuubi had vaporized them in mid-air without breaking stride and she couldn't even scream. Her knees hit the ground and she curled up around her belly.

Chakra overload again, damn it, no -- her muscles started to ache as she redirected it as far away from her womb as possible. She had no chakra-heavy techniques to her name, with how little she could usually spare -- apart from her healing, but the demon chakra just refused to be used that way. How to spend it, get it out, get it away -- what jutsu did she know?

She lifted her head, squinted; the world had gone weird too-sharp colors again. Red-orange fire danced on the hard-packed earth, blackened tall rocks. Zenko stifled an incensed cry as her katana went red-hot, burning her hand. The Grass kunoichi had gotten him -- Kyuubi -- Sakura could see, sword going straight through his side, and he hissed in annoyance between his fangs. Maneki had a knee on the ground and his sliced shoulder bled in fat red drops onto his injured teammate, who was just awake enough to glare furiously and push himself away inch by inch with elbows and heels.

Sakura gritted her teeth and started shaping seals, fighting the red chakra inside her every step of the way.

She could smell cooked meat from there, but Zenko didn't let go of the sword -- just pulled it free and went into a two-handed grip and sliced again, low to the ground, aiming for the back of Kyuubi's ankles.

He jumped over, predictably.

Maneki surged forward like an avalanche and planted two green-glowing hands on the middle of his chest. Sakura almost lost her hand seal in shock as she watched Kyuubi fly back and crash into the ground.

For a second she thought Maneki had dealt actual damage; Kyuubi jumped back into a crouch, but his upper lip was curled up in an angry snarl and he had a hand pressed to his chest.

Then he uncoiled like a spring, flying at the two Grass nins so fast Sakura's eye couldn't follow.

She could calculate where he would be, though. And she knew exactly how fast her jutsu traveled.

Water coalesced and shot forward, pulled out of the air itself. It was a basic Suiton jutsu, nothing complicated, just a spurt of water. She fed it all the chakra she could, and it came out like a water cannon instead.

A cloud of steam bloomed when it rammed through Kyuubi's aura, blocking out the battlefield; she couldn't tell what had happened. Water ran downhill back to where she was kneeling, and it was warm to the touch, soaking her dress and shoes. Sakura climbed back to her feet slowly, rebalancing her energies. She'd overloaded the jutsu, and some of the energy had come back to her instead of going neatly into the spell, but it was manageable now.

"Nice," someone said, two steps away from her, and she gave a full-body twitch and jerked around.

"Sasuke!"

He was bleeding, of course, she'd expected as much, but not that badly -- scratches and slices, not the deep red gushing she had feared. Hair in disarray, dust caked over his wounds -- standing on his own two feet, and not appearing to favor anything. She'd imagined so much worse.

"What hap--"

A bellowing roar cut her off and she looked up at the battleground again. Kyuubi stood where the Grass team had been, but of the trio there was not a trace. Kyuubi paced angrily, fingers curling, raking his claws through imaginary flesh. Water ran downhill in little rivulets on the hard earth, making just enough mud to speckle his pant legs. He was soaked, blond bangs sticking to his face, water running down bare shoulders, washing down the blood he had shed when Zenko ran him through. The wound was long since closed, of course.

"Doton," Sasuke said quietly to her as he moved to stand by her side.

Sakura glanced down. Underground, all three of them? It made the Grass team a little safer, but not too much. They wouldn't be able to tunnel very far, and if they went too fast Kyuubi would hear them. He definitely had enough chakra to take out a chunk of the hillside.

She'd had all the landslides she could handle today. "We should move up," she said back, just as softly. Sasuke nodded and started moving, giving Kyuubi a wide berth.

Kyuubi kept pacing, staring down at the ground, tilting his head like a dog listening to faraway howls. At least his chakra was calmer; no longer a complete aura, just a handful of gold tendrils curling and rising from his shoulders.

"... What happened to you?" she whispered to Sasuke, her eyes still on the blond creature that wasn't her teammate. "You didn't come back for so long -- did he knock you out?"

Sasuke grumbled something under his breath and pulled a leaf out of his hair.

"... No," he eventually muttered. "Listen, it doesn't matter, we need to figure out what to do. What do we know?"

She shook her head. She was even more curious now, but it could wait. He was there, it was good enough. "Naruto is being suppressed via sleep jutsu. It'll take at least eight hours to wear off. And I think..." She hesitated. "Green-haired guy is a fox summoner."

Sasuke made a little hissing sound as he took that in. "Huh. Tried aiming at the scroll?"

Sakura blinked; she hadn't thought of that, she'd just looked for a solution on the medic side of things. "Didn't see it. I don't think Kyuubi would go back anyway. He summons weird -- attracts local beasts instead of teleporting them to him."

Kyuubi stuck his claws in a waist-high boulder and heaved it out of its hole, sending it rolling away. He peered down at the ground beneath it, scowling. He looked two seconds away from puffing up his cheeks like Naruto did when he felt grumpy, and for a moment she couldn't remember why he had terrified her so much.

"Huh." Sasuke frowned, staring at the fox.

A muscle in his jaw kept jumping. Sakura tilted her head, inquiring. "What is it?"

"...Nothing."

It wasn't, of course, but he wasn't going to tell her. Frustration about the situation most likely. "We need to do something," she said as she watched Kyuubi slash at the ground with chakra claws, a hand clenched on her belly. The surge was minimal, easily dispersed.

"Sakura?"

"Backlash," she said tersely, because she didn't want to show how much the situation worried her. "The damming seal is gone."

"Shit."

"Mmh."

Kyuubi clawed at the ground again, slashing earth away in deep gouges here and there -- and then his seemingly random pattern started focusing on a specific area. His shoulders straightened slightly, the cant of his head changed. Sakura couldn't see his face and wasn't used to his body language, but she could tell that his predatory interest -- almost catlike in its playfulness -- was coming back.

"He's found them," she said, and bit her lip.

Sasuke didn't say anything for a second, and then answered with a brusqueness that startled her. "We should consider letting him have them."

The muscles in Sakura's shoulders tightened and she forbade herself to look his way. From the tone of his voice, Sasuke didn't like his own suggestion either.

"They're enemies after all," she said tonelessly.

"Yeah."

"...Pretend I'm not pregnant."

Sasuke took his eyes off Kyuubi and stared at her, sharingan eyes spinning. "--What?"

"No, pretend I'm Naruto. Now what should we do?"

Sasuke closed his eyes briefly.

"... Fight." He let out a short, irritated breath. "Problem is, in the end it won't do a thing. He wants to kill them first. He'll swat us down, go after them, and then come back and beat on us more. He doesn't want to break us for good. We're better toys."

Which, she understood, was how Kyuubi had treated Sasuke. "But he won't kill us," she replied with more certainty than she felt. Kyuubi was now digging in a specific area, his face turned her way just enough to let her see the fanged smirk. "... He won't beat _me_ up," she said. Not head or body blows at least -- skin, limbs, muscles, yes, but she should be safe from internal trauma. "But be it now or later, he'll beat on you until you can't move and then we'll be sitting ducks."

Sasuke twitched his head, sending dark locks flying away from his face. "I don't care."

Sakura took a deep breath, braced herself, and buried every single misgiving she had so nothing showed in her voice but determination.

"When they pop up, grab them and run. I'll distract him until he loses your tracks. When the sleep jutsu breaks... I guess you'll know."

"... Sakura, _are you joking_ ," Sasuke asked flatly.

"Sasuke-kun. He's going to kill them. Probably by dismemberment." Sasuke opened his mouth but she just kept talking over him. "And then Naruto will wake up, and what will you tell him? 'Sorry, it was easier on us to let you tear them to pieces'?"

"Sakura," Sasuke protested in a quiet voice, his hand closing around her wrist.

Sakura allowed herself to lean on Sasuke's shoulder for a second, and gave him a fleeting smile. "He won't hurt me," she said. "He hasn't yet. He's been all talk with me. I'll be fine. Maybe a bit bruised, but fine. You need to get ready to go."

She started forward.

Sasuke's hand tightened briefly, as if he was thinking of holding her back, but she took another step and it released her and fell away. He followed without another word, spreading out so they would each have more space to maneuver. His jaw was set in a grim, displeased way.

He didn't have to like it, Sakura told herself. She didn't have the chakra to heal him from a bloody pulp back into a human being, much less the know-how. Therefore Sasuke needed to stay away until Naruto woke up. And _she_ needed to do her best to make sure Kyuubi wasn't going to rampage all over the island.

Kyuubi glanced at her when she was a dozen feet away, but by then she was already cocking her fist and swinging it down to the hard packed ground.

She'd never held and released so much chakra in one go before, and the timing was perfect. Destruction radiated out around her. It was strangely exhilarating.

Kyuubi jumped back, landed in a deep crouch on unstable terrain, snarled at her as his claws dug in for purchase. Sasuke blurred from sight, dust swirling behind him; Kyuubi's head snapped around to track him. Sakura couldn't allow him to do that; it was her job to cover Sasuke's back. But with the ground already broken, the impact of another punch wouldn't travel far.

Her fingers flitted through the water-hose hand seals; she got Kyuubi right in the face. The jet was a lot less impressive this time around, but it did its job. Kyuubi snarled, loud and irritated; by the time he had shaken waterlogged bangs out of his face, she'd seen Sasuke, Maneki and Zenko fade from view, the green-haired boy thrown across Maneki's huge shoulders with his head lolling limply.

Genjutsu. One she could see from her peripheral vision for a couple of seconds, like a desert mirage, but they were out of range before she could pinpoint it. She had no idea if Kyuubi was any better at genjutsu than she was -- but it felt like he should be; fox-spirits were known for their illusions.

Naruto was abysmal at it; she felt a twinge at the thought of him. At least he wasn't aware of what he was doing. She told herself it was a good thing.

"You little _bitch_."

Suddenly the air was flooded with killing intent and burning chakra.

Sakura gasped, a hand flying to her belly, allowing him to see exactly how much it hurt. "You'll kill the child," she gasped. "You really will."

For a few seconds it looked like he wouldn't care, red eyes disdainful and angry. Worry crept up her spine, resolve wavering. Then with a wordless snarl he turned his back on her, stiff and frustrated, and suddenly she could breathe again.

The raging chakra was gone, smothered. She'd been right. She'd been _right_. He cared. The threats, and the implication that if the child was too weak to survive that was fine with him, it was all talk -- well, maybe not all talk, but... She swallowed a lone, giddy, chuckle and forced herself to sober up. She might have some measure of safety, but the Grass trio didn't. And Sasuke-kun... 

Kyuubi scanned the area for his fleeing prey. The ground was deceptively flat, though, and Sakura knew it. If the group had reached one of the numerous canyons then he wasn't going to see them. She hoped they kept away, kept safe. (She also hoped Sasuke robbed them blind, but that was rather secondary at the moment.)

She slowly stepped closer, still not sure what she would do. If she could have guaranteed herself enough lag time to learn Maneki's technique, she would have gone with them -- but Kyuubi never held back against Sasuke; he couldn't be rearguard. And without a rearguard at all, Kyuubi would track them down all too soon.

"If you get in my way again, I'll hurt you," Kyuubi said, his back still on her.

He didn't say 'kill'. It was still all talk, even with the dark murderous vibes he gave off. Sakura felt a twinge of relief, mixed with anger and an odd sort of hurt. Even with Tsunade-sama's punches, she still wasn't an opponent he felt he had to take seriously. Turning his back on her so casually -- it stung. He would never turn his back on Sasuke like that.

For a second she considered acting meek, pretending to be harmless, submissive, trying to talk him out of things. Flattering him maybe, calling him Kyuubi-sama so he'd be in a better mood, and no, to hell with that.

She gathered the demon chakra in her fist. It was unstable; but that didn't matter quite as much if it impacted with flesh as opposed to a stony surface. She cocked her fist back and lengthened her steps.

"It's alright," she said, in what she thought was a pretty calm tone, all things considered. "That's fair. I'll be doing the same."

When Kyuubi turned toward her, his expression was irritated enough; but at the last second it changed into offended disbelief.

Then her fist plowed into his face.

She watched him roll on the uneven ground, come to a sudden stop against a jutting rock; the impact almost unseated it.

She felt so calm suddenly. It was strange, a knife's-edge balance between fear and exhilaration. "You know, I really don't like it when you turn your back on me."

He pushed himself up on his hands, shaking his head like a wet dog. He snarled. This time at least his red eyes were looking straight at her.

It was tempting to close the distance, to keep pressing, but she wasn't fast enough to trust her taijutsu against his. She threw herself to the side the second he pounced, knowing how fast he was. He clipped her shoulder anyway; she stumbled, whirled around, found him already coming back for another pounce. She flung an explosive tag straight at him, used the blast to propel herself to the closest boulder. She rolled immediately behind it, before the dust even fell, out of sight. Her back stung all over from the shockwave.

Wear him down -- that was the only way to stop such a force of nature. Slow him down little by little, break his momentum. Keep him from taking control of the fight.

She only had a couple of explosive tags left.

"Hiding?" Kyuubi drawled.

His voice was still far enough that she didn't worry yet. Her eyes roamed over the broken rocks, the dust, the low bushes.

"I thought you wanted to hurt me."

If she could cross this flat, arid area, disappear into the greener hollow the river cut across the island -- there were trees and bushes there. She knew how to use those. She could stall him better.

"Bitten off more than you can chew, have you, bitch."

Well, at least she'd definitely graduated from slut.

She plunged a hand in her pouch. Smoke tag, some candy -- she didn't even have any soldier pills; they were contraindicated in her condition -- a couple of shuriken and ... oh.

Yes, perhaps she could use that.

Kyuubi landed atop her boulder, claws raking the stone. Sakura gasped and took a couple of steps away from him, stumbling, legs visibly shaking. Kyuubi's cold, watchful expression turned into a contemptuous sneer, and he stalked forward with obvious irritation.

"You're not worth my time." He snorted, threw an impatient look at the direction Sasuke and the Grass nin had disappeared. "They'll show more guts... One way or another."

Growling under his breath in a put-upon way, he slipped off the rock, stepped toward her.

Then the wires snapped out of the dust to wrap around his leg with a loud twang.

It was a spider web of steel, wrapping three, four times up his calf, forcing his knee to fold so he stumbled. Anchored to the closest half-dozen boulders, it would take even him a few seconds to rip it out. She'd intended to use the time to flee.

Instead she gathered chakra and charged.

Kyuubi might not want to hurt her. He might not want to fight her. He might not want to see her bleed. It hurt her pride, but it was convenient. She didn't care. But she would never let him hurt Sasuke.

She was close, only a couple of steps away. He was still off-balance, hindered. Her right fist snapped forward.

It glanced off his jaw as he twisted aside with animal flexibility. The chakra exploded out nonetheless, the recoil flinging her hand and his upper body aside, fouling her momentum.

Something hooked her shoulder and threw her to the ground hard enough to leave a gouge in the earth, knocking the breath out of her. He rolled on top of her before she could move, red eyes furious. She raised her other hand, her other fist.

His teeth sank in her left forearm up to the gum. For a second it didn't even hurt; she just felt the pressure. Then her bone cracked in his jaw.

Screaming, she exploded into movement. Feet and knees hammered at his body; he gave her arm a shake. Her blood flew from his mouth, landed in warm drops on her face. Her vision darkened, dizziness and nausea rising together to choke her. She could feel the muscles tear. He'd sliced a vein.

She elbowed him in the temple, screaming again when his fangs were wrenched out.

She didn't even really see the backhand that caught her in the side of the face.

 _red bridge blue water green sky, all dark, all dirtied, river swelled up with rust-gold and it got the planks all wet under her, all wet and that was just so wrong. water belonged under the bridge, not over it, trying to wash her away. Naruto was there upstream on his island, but he was a curled-up ball of tarnished gold fur and he didn't move at all and it_ hurt so much she woke up.

She took a little sobbing breath, swimming in and out of consciousness. So stupid to think he wouldn't hurt her at all; her cheekbone was cracked too and her neck hurt. The left side of her tunic was wet with a widening puddle of her blood.

Kyuubi's weight pinned down her thighs. He was so close his blond bangs tickled her forehead. Killing intent roiled off him, choking her. His lips were wet with her blood, as was his chin, like a lion that had just finished gorging itself.

Hadn't killed her yet, she told herself in between two hitching breaths. Nothing was even really broken. Could fix it. Could. If he...

If oh god why was he leaning closer, no, that was more than close enough -- more than close enough, those thick teeth so close to her face, her eyes -- she could still be pregnant without her eyes --

His blood-wet lips brushed her puffed-up cheekbone, his tongue traced the split in the skin his knuckles had left. It stung.

He was growling, so softly it sounded like a purr. Foxes didn't purr, she reminded herself -- threat, not pleasure. The low thrumming sound resonated in her bones. He lifted a hand and she flinched when she thought he'd hit her, then flinched again when it touched her hair instead, tangled messy pink strands around claw-tipped fingers.

"Silly little bitch," he said, so quiet it almost sounded like an endearment.

It wasn't just the eye color and the moods. Something in the way his brow furrowed, his lip quirked, the way he hooded his lids, the way his jaw muscles clenched -- it made all Naruto's leftover baby fat disappear, made the planes of his face subtly different. He looked older than Naruto, and more like a brother than a twin.

He tugged on her hair, forcing her to bare the side of her neck, brushed the tip of his fangs against her skin. A subtle, intimate threat that didn't mean 'I'll tear out your jugular' at all.

He wasn't Naruto, he didn't even look like Naruto, it didn't matter what he did to her. She wasn't going to get flashbacks when Naruto -- later, when he came to her and -- leaned close -- kissed her -- nothing in common to Kyuubi's breath on her face, not the same mood or the same person and it didn't even look like Naruto's body. (it did, it did.)

She breathed out, and in, and out again. Had to be calm, rational.

She'd rather get raped than have an eye bitten out. She was trained to deal with rape.

"Naruto," she whispered back, hand feeling for her thigh pouch. "Naruto, wake up. Wake up." Her finger slipped through a cold metallic ring.

She'd expected Kyuubi to laugh at her, lazy like a well-entertained predator, but the tightly-leashed rage that flared briefly in his eyes caught her by surprise. She'd been wrong, he wasn't satisfied by his win enough to be content with the mental trauma he inflicted. He was still wound up enough he might decide to tear into her again.

If she used that kunai on him, he might kill her out of sheer rage.

If she didn't kill him with the first blow -- sever his spine, pierce his brain -- he would kill her. Sakura didn't want to kill him, and if she just threatened him he would never back off -- he'd counterattack immediately. The weapon was useless.

"Naruto--"

Kyuubi's hand closed around her bleeding arm and tightened, making her give a short, gut-clenching scream.

"Hey, you! What the hell are you doing?!"

Her first thought was 'Sasuke', but even as she had it she knew it couldn't be. The voice was too high-pitched, for one thing. She lifted her head off the ground to scan what she could see of their surroundings.

Kids. Three kids. Thirteen year old at most. A black-haired girl and a bespectacled boy and one with a blade-tipped staff. Their expressions of shock twisted faces she should have remembered.

Then the one with the staff moved forward, and she noticed the wooden shaft lacked ten inches off the end and had been bandaged, so it wouldn't splinter all the way down. His little round-cheeked face was red with offense and something like betrayal.

"What's wrong with you?! I thought you were a nice guy!"

Kyuubi rolled off her just as she recognized the kid Naruto had sparred with, the one he'd finished with his stupid naked woman jutsu -- was it just this morning? It felt like months ago.

Sakura pushed herself up on an elbow, forced green chakra down her cracked bone haphazardly. Maybe she'd heal herself wrong. She didn't care; Tsunade-sama could fix it later. She needed two working arms right now. But when she managed to kneel up her head swam from the blood loss.

Kyuubi was still advancing toward the kids, body stiff with unexpected rage.

Had they gotten a team of uncooperative assholes to safety just to get three friendly brats killed? No, no, no, hell no -- Naruto would recover from getting rid of three enemies, but not from them, not them -- "Run!" she screamed at them, struggling to stand.

She saw them hesitate, resolve wavering. The guy with the glasses took a step back.

Three tails of fiery chakra fanned out behind Kyuubi; the backlash caught her like a mule's kick to the stomach, dropping her again.

"Kyuubi, no!"

A fourth tail; the world started to blur.

"You'll kill the baby--" she saw him pause, hesitate -- just one second, just one, but then he snarled and shook his head like a dog out of water, and the killing intent was so thick in the air she wasn't even surprised to see two of the kids fall to their knees, sobbing in fright.

The one with the spear was still up, bracing himself heavily on his weapon, eyes glassy as he desperately held his ground in front of his teammates.

" _I'll_ kill the baby!"

It was probably the surprise that made Kyuubi glance back over his shoulder.

She climbed back up to her feet, hands firm as she held her last kunai point-first against her belly.

"I'd rather bleed out right here," she said. "I'd rather bleed out right here than bear a child you'd call yours."

He turned halfway toward her, stared at her with burning eyes, his face and bare chest streaked with her blood.

" ... I'm here. You can hurt me a lot more than this. I'm a medic-nin. I can last longer than a kid ever would. Just let them go."

He hung his head then, blond spikes shadowing his face, and it was such a Naruto gesture she didn't notice the third tail had disappeared from view until the ground exploded under her. She was still desperately trying to twist to face the ground so she'd land on her feet when a returning swing caught her right in the ribs.

Fly. Crash.

Her back hurt. Probably because of the boulder Kyuubi had just flung her at. Should have hurt more, but the red chakra was inside her too, so the rock had splintered instead of her spine.

She vaguely thought that she should move, but even turning her head to the side took so much effort.

Someone was crying up there, big gulping sobs, so she tried again.

His teammates' faces were wet with tears, but his wasn't; it was just kind of surprised. Kyuubi was sitting on his haunches beside him. The spear protruded from the boy's stomach, the ribbon at the other end moving like a flag in the wind of Kyuubi's chakra. And then Kyuubi cocked back his claws.


	7. Sunset (Sasuke)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Non-linearity FTW! Sorry if the first half of the chapter is confusing, I was experimenting with flashbacks. Hopefully it will all make sense if you keep going a little bit.

**Then** :

The old three-tailed fox slid in his grasp, fur slick with blood. Sasuke shifted the animal back up against his chest as he ran; the fox didn't complain, even though he'd been a little rough. The animal wasn't heavy, mostly made of skin and bones, but tall enough to be awkward to carry.

The jounin-sensei should have been there over a half-hour ago.

The cloud of dust rising from the landslide Kyuubi had started was as good as a beacon flare. Big-scale destruction meant dangerous, higher-level fighters, but also a higher likelihood of exhausted or badly injured opponents. Only one day left for the test and those still in the running were starting to feel the need to take bigger risks if they wanted to get anywhere. Sasuke understood that. It was jus strange that they weren't.

Sasuke slanted a wary look at the girl with the katana. She was the only one with her arms free; he didn't like that. If the fox hadn't needed all its concentration to keep holding the genjutsu that hid their escape, Sasuke was sure she would have attacked already. He knew the type.

He threw a quick glance over his shoulder, sharingan cutting through the haze of the kitsune illusion. Still no sign of pursuit. Still no sign of Sakura either. He really hated this.

Fucking Kyuubi.

More than a mile away and he could still feel Kyuubi's chakra prickling his skin.

He didn't want to go any farther; it seemed a really stupid mistake not to have even a rough idea of Kyuubi's location. He stalked up to the girl, sidestepped the tip of her sword, and pushed the blood-slick fox in her arms.

She stiffened, forced to juggle the katana and the animal. The fox smothered a little pained grunt. Sasuke took a step back out of her personal space before she decided to just dump the beast on the ground and run him through.

"That's far enough," Sasuke said.

He took them in. One exhausted and rather slow-moving medic-nin, one half-dead guy, two summons - one of them arthritic, with a crushed front paw, and the other one, the horse-sized wolf, still trembling on the edge of white-eyed panic. It wouldn't be hard for him to punch the girl unconscious and force their tokens out of them. And then, of course, the healer would have to juggle two KOed teammates as Kyuubi no Youko hunted them down, which made helping them get away in the first place rather pointless.

He was tempted to just turn around and leave. Negotiating would take time he could use to get back to Sakura and check on the situation.

He wished he hadn't let it bother him, when she asked what he'd do if Naruto were the one standing with him on the battlefield instead. He knew she was a ninja and he had to trust her to handle some of their collective shit at least _sometimes_ , but he still wished he'd stayed.

Of course then Kyuubi would have just trapped him under another tree with admonitions to get some rest already because an exhausted Sasuke couldn't entertain that furry asshole enough, and the Grass team would be dead and Sakura would have ended up alone in front of him anyway. Sasuke tugged a leaf out of his hair, freeing a clump of dirt. He could probably afford to waste a little time extorting compensation out of them. Wasn't like he could do much back there, apart from getting beaten up again.

They kept staring at him, the girl and the giant, waiting for his demands. Exhausted and beaten and hating every single second of it.

Sasuke's upper lip curled and he turned on his heel to leave.

"Wait," the healer said.

The young man was a little pale, now that Sasuke looked closer. Especially around the lips, bloodless and pinched. No doubt he'd wasted a lot of chakra on his companion. He wasn't really that old, actually - just large and big-boned. Sixteen maybe, though at first glance you'd have given him at least twenty.

"We won't go far alone."

"Not my problem," Sasuke countered. "You attacked us first, count yourself lucky I even bothered getting you that far."

The healer shifted his teammate's weight on his back; brown-skinned fingers clenched weakly on his shirt as the injured teenager woke halfway. The healer glanced down at those hands, squared his shoulders in resolve.

"I don't suppose you want to escort us? I'll pay you." He tapped the zippered pouch at his waist.

The girl jerked in surprise, and she put the fox down on the mossy ground a little fast, in a hurry to free her arms. " _Maneki,_ stop right here. We will not be indebted to him."

"We're already indebted to him, Zenko."

She didn't like that, he could tell, her almond eyes narrowed to black slits. Sasuke was ready to say 'You're not going to get any more indebted than that, because I'm leaving.' But then again...

The healer acknowledged a debt. Did he feel it was big enough to owe Sasuke a way to fix that mess? That would be worth wasting a few more minutes, if he could only copy it with the Sharingan.

"Teach me how to end that jutsu and we'll be even."

The guy - Maneki - hesitated, and sighed. "Oh, hell. Why not. I was going to tell your teammate anyway."

He shifted his unconscious teammate's weight to the side so he could free a hand to shake on, the corner of his lip quirked up in a rueful, tired half-smile.

\--

 **Now** :

At his side the draft-horse-sized wolf stumbled. Sasuke's hand shot out and snatched Green-hair's wrist before the half-unconscious Grass ninja could slide boneless off his ride.

Fingers clenching weakly into dark fur, Green-hair refused to meet his eyes, to acknowledge his help. It worked for Sasuke; he did the same, turned his attention back outward, away from the exhausted wolf and its charge, away from the other two, the girl and the giant. He wasn't any happier about being here than the Grass team was.

Traveling face down on his mount wasn't very good for Green-hair, pressed along the wolf's spine, arms and legs dangling on each side with only their weight to keep him balanced up there. If he lost consciousness again the fur might smother him, and Sasuke didn't know what state his ribs were in - he just knew the guy's shirt was one big red ruin in the front.

No one else could carry him. Only Sasuke was still unburdened, and Sasuke wouldn't hinder himself again.

Where the fuck were the jounin-sensei? There should have been some around, if only for security purposes if not for handing out those tokens. Were they all converging on Kyuubi's location? That had to be it... Because Sasuke hadn't seen or felt even a hint that one of them had been anywhere close since early this morning, and that was just wrong.

He circled the group again, went on point, fell back. Looked at them, just a glance, before going back on high alert.

The old fox sat crouched on the wolf's rump, his injured paw tucked in, and sometimes pushed his weight on one of his master's legs to keep him balanced. The girl Zenko trudged along, slender body bent almost double under the healer's weight. Her face looked chiseled in marble.

The wolf was close to just saying 'fuck it' and bolting, popping back into whatever other space or dimension it came from. Except that its summoner - its pack leader - still walked. So it stayed. For now.

Green-hair watched Zenko, too, the side of his face pressed on her wolf's flank. He wasn't saying anything. No one had said a thing since the ambush.

Sasuke rubbed his forearm. Flakes of crusting blood fell from razor-sharp, parallel slices that matched his shredded arm-warmer. He had tried to hold onto the cat. He shouldn't have...

\--

 **Then** :

... "This is Yume," Maneki said, crouched on the floor with his hand still on the summoning circle.

She was tiger-striped and sleek, with green eyes, and the tip of her lashing tail was just barely forked. She looked up at Sasuke with that indifference that was the mark of cats everywhere, goblin-cat or not.

"I can't teach the jutsu to you - your control isn't fine enough. But Yume knows what your medic needs to know."

The nekomata leaped to Sasuke's chest, where he caught and held her only out of an old, forgotten habit. He hadn't handled a cat in so long. He felt vaguely annoyed - reluctantly amused - at the assumption that of course he would wrap an arm under her for her to sit on... or perhaps she didn't care whether he did or not, because she had her claws in his shirt to make sure gravity didn't pull her back down regardless.

"So? What are you waiting for?"

Sasuke snorted at the cat-summon's acidic tone, and turned around to leave without giving the Grass team a last look. He started jogging down the slope, the cat's upper body draped lazily on his shoulder.

Naruto. Sakura. He wasn't sure how he would immobilize Kyuubi long enough for Sakura to do her thing, but they'd figure something out.

Sasuke had just planned to get the Grass summoner team out of Kyuubi's immediate range, where the big healer and the girl with the katana could evacuate their own teammate. Now that it was done, the rest was their problem. He had teammates of his own to go back to.

He didn't have time to go far. Yume suddenly bristled herself to three times her size and clawed her way out of his hold, yowling. He fought to hold her back, but she was fast and too small and sleek to hold onto.

Fuck. Why the hell had he ever imagined Maneki had honor? The rest of his team didn't, and now here was his summon, escaping to get out of their deal. He gritted his teeth; he would bet they had enough time to hide again and thought Sasuke wouldn't find them, or maybe that he was in too much of a hurry to bother looking too hard.

They'd miscalculated. Sakura was safe enough for now - anyone who got within a half-mile of her wouldn't survive Kyuubi long enough to cause her any trouble. And Sasuke hated being made a fool of.

He gave chase to the animal, keeping hot on her tail, refusing to let her lose him as she went through bushes he couldn't cross. He kept track of every movement, jumped over rocks and bounced up slopes after the madly racing cat. And then he was back where he'd left the Grass team.

He should have known the dust would attract other teams. It was like a signal flare. He should have known.

**\--**

**Now** :

... "He's dead, Zen."

Sasuke stared ahead, like he hadn't heard Green-hair's scratchy voice. For a moment - ten seconds, thirty - Zenko did the same, her narrow face fixed into a surprisingly mild expression.

"I can tell," she said.

She kept going, bent almost double, Maneki's limp body draped over her back with his legs dragging in the dust.

It would have been easier to switch, his bulk on the wolf, Green-hair on her, but Sasuke had heard the crisp order she gave the beast, if they were ambushed once again - to run away and get Kon - Green-hair - out of there.

And she would stay behind to fight. With the corpse.

Sasuke drifted away on the far side of the wolf's flank, put its body between him and the two teammates so he couldn't see their faces.

"He's _dead weight_."

Zenko kept staring right ahead, and taking one step and one step and another step. "He is."

Sasuke saw Green-hair's fingers clench in the wolf's fur until the knuckles paled.

"Hey, Leaf bastard," he called, voice almost like a growl. Sasuke had heard Kyuubi growl, of course, and it didn't compare, but it was a good attempt. A lot more raw, too. Pain and powerlessness, anger thrown at Sasuke's face like a shield. He was intimate with such methods.

"What is it?"

"Come here."

Sasuke went. He got there in time to catch him as the boy slipped off the wolf; he had to take most of his weight as Kon's legs wobbled. For a second the Grass ninja almost fainted.

The wolf stopped, whined quietly. Zenko took another ten step before she slowed and stopped in turn.

It should have looked kind of ridiculous, really; Zenko was only slightly bigger than Sakura, with narrow hips and long slender legs. Maneki had at least a foot and sixty pounds on her. It looked like any second she would fold under his bulk and be crushed.

Like their dragging escape from the pack of Rock-nins had proved, the body was slowing them down. Extremely so. Sasuke hadn't been about to say anything, not just yet. It wasn't his place.

"Get me there."

Sasuke pulled one of Green-hair's arms around his neck, wrapped one of his around the wounded ninja's waist, and half-carried him to her.

The two teammates stared at each other. Sasuke tried not to imagine being in their place and failed.

No, never again. Naruto dead, limp on the ground. Sakura. Kakashi. He refused. God, he wanted away from there already. He'd rather have to deal with Kyuubi.

He couldn't leave them yet.

"You shouldn't be standing." Zenko still looked studiously, determinedly blank.

The boy at his side snarled, golden eyes burning with sudden rage. "Fuck you. You shouldn't be hauling around a useless bag of meat."

Sasuke kept his face as expressionless as possible as Zenko stiffened all over, pretended he was deaf and not all that interested in lip-reading beside.

"I do not care what your kind does," she said after a few seconds, in a very quiet, very chilly voice. "I will not abandon a comrade."

Green-hair swayed a little against Sasuke's side; Sasuke got the feeling it wasn't entirely pretend. His stare stayed predatory, though a twist of his lips hinted at nausea, or dizziness, or both. " _I'm_ your comrade too. You're abandoning _me_."

Kon shook his head, as if to get rid of cobwebs, let his eyes go unfocused and this time Sasuke was almost sure he had let his control go on purpose, so Zenko would feel guilty.

"I need you. He doesn't."

She shook her head, angry but silent.

"Want me dead too? Hell, maybe I'll be easier to carry when you can afford to drag me over the rocks."

" _Shut up_!"

The wolf flattened its ears back and crouched low on the ground, but its mistress didn't even look that way.

She was losing her grasp on her artificial cool, breath coming faster, made-up lips curling into a snarl. "Shut up, just shut up, how can you want me to leave him-"

"It's him or me!" Kon yelled. "His _corpse_ or me, because that's not him, that's not Maneki, Maneki is _dead_ , okay?"

He paused to regain his breath; she didn't interrupt him, though she looked furious enough to deck him if she hadn't had her arms full keeping the body from falling to the ground.

"And what do you want _me_ to do? I can't do jack shit but depend on you."

Sasuke snorted quietly. Nice to know his attempts to mimic furniture were working. Zenko's eyes immediately zeroed in on him. It was acknowledgement enough for Sasuke to feel he could join in on the conversation. "I don't care what you two decide, but it better be sorted out soon. We can't stand in the open all evening."

Zenko's eyelids twitched at the reminder, like she wanted to scan their surroundings. Sasuke hadn't seen her do much of that since they'd left the ambush site; it was probably a good sign that she would start paying attention again.

She closed her eyes for a second, and then it was the marble face again, all smooth and empty. But her voice didn't match, trembling with something not quite like rage. "Very well. Let's find a place to bury him."

"That'll take a while," Sasuke said neutrally. She stared at him in disbelief that he'd dared remind them he was more than a ninja-shaped pack mule. "I suggest we find a hollow and block it with branches and rocks. It will be easier to recover him later."

The old fox shook himself and climbed up on his three paws. "This sounds like quite a good idea to me. We'll look. Goro-kun, come along, please."

He limped away, the wolf following hesitantly. Zenko still looked on the verge of exploding at him, for daring to suggest anything. He understood. Anything would look like an acceptable target at this point. He ignored her as he sat Kon on the ground, the boy's back to a little tree.

"I'll be right back."

He went to look, too, though he didn't drift very far, just in case. The animals had a better chance of finding something, but Zenko and Kon needed their privacy, and Sasuke needed to give them some. Get himself some.

What a fucking mess.

He couldn't leave just yet. Not without handing them over to someone else.

He didn't even _like_ them. They'd been antagonistic from the start, and if he hadn't known the two of them had much more important shit to think about, Sasuke would have never let Kon put an arm around his neck, even injured as the guy was. Just wait a little bit for the fox summoner to pull himself together and Sasuke would have to watch his back once again.

He still couldn't bring himself to just walk away. It wasn't a sense of guilt, not really. If he had been there all along, if he hadn't left to go back to Sakura, Maneki would probably be alive - so what? What next? Should he feel guilty every time some not-so-bad guy he'd never met got himself offed on some random mission he'd never heard of, that Sasuke might perhaps have stopped single-handedly? He'd done more than he had owed those three, had saved them from the one risk that was his to handle - Kyuubi.

Death happened, especially to shinobi. It wasn't guilt. More like... responsibility.

A fox bark called him back. They'd found a crevasse close by, hidden by bushes, just about the right size.

Zenko closed her teammate's eyes. She didn't linger; just stared at his face for a second and then methodically went through his pockets and belt pouch. Soldier pills, explosive tags, a couple of pieces of candy - his token, that silly little disk of copper he'd been killed for.

She stared at it, too, and then closed her fist around it and slanted Sasuke a hostile, teeth-gritted look.

"Leaf. Come here."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed a little. He went, slowly, to remind her he didn't have to.

Zenko pulled a scroll out of Maneki's pouch and shoved it in his hands, and then she stuffed the token in her own belt. Sasuke stared down at the scroll, an eyebrow arched.

"Your payment. For bodyguard duties."

When Sasuke unrolled the first inches of paper to have a look inside, he saw a paw print in black ink and a summoning seal. Farther down were a list of names. His breath caught for a second.

"Are you _serious_?"

Who the hell just handed off that kind of thing to an enemy, no matter the reason? She hated him on principle! For that matter, so did Kon. The only one who didn't want to eat his face was the old fox, and even then he would still dutifully go through with it if his summoner asked him to.

"What else do you want? A kunai? A roll of bandages?"

Sasuke slanted a meaningful look at her belt pouch. Zenko sneered.

"You didn't beat him. You don't get to have his token."

Sasuke shook his head, gave Kon a look, but the fox-summoner's face looked blank; he wasn't going to argue against the trade.

"...I don't want that cat scroll. I don't want anything. I didn't do it for you." He'd done it because he couldn't look Naruto in the eye anymore if he didn't. That was it. No other reason.

Zenko's hand fell to the hilt of her katana; behind her, the big wolf bared his fangs in threat. "Listen," she said quietly, with forced slowness. "It _really_ hurts my pride when a goddamn Konoha bastard does me that kind of _charity_. So take the fucking scroll because I don't want to owe you a thing."

"So instead of a cheap token you'd rather give me an expensive scroll containing an important jutsu?" Sasuke snorted, a hand clenched on the half-unrolled scroll. He just didn't get the logic. Granted - Maneki had been killed for the token. He could understand not wanting to let it go. But how was the scroll any less meaningful?

"I need the token now. I don't need the scroll."

... Oh.

She planned to stay in the tournament. Even now. Huh.

Zenko turned her back on him with pointed disdain. "With a little luck you'll get killed before you leave the island and I'll get it back from your corpse. Now get the hell out of here."

Sasuke let out a short sigh, rewrapped the scroll, stuffed it in his pocket, and went. Behind him he could see the girl rolling her teammate's huge body in the hole, and the old fox limping closer, dragging branches to pull over him; then he went over a ridge and lost sight of them.

The scratches Yume had left as she struggled out of his hold looked a little inflamed already. Sasuke pulled his arm-warmer around until the red lines were hidden and tried not to remember the cat's incredulous, wounded scream as she disappeared into smoke.

He'd figure out what to do with the scroll afterwards. He wasn't sure what use would a housecat be to him... Maybe one of Naruto or Sakura's friends would want it.

* * *

****\--** **

****(Naruto)** **

He remembered being on the edge of victory. Protecting those who were his, and _winning_ , wild and free. And then a touch - just one, fleeting - and nothingness. Entombed in his own body.

He woke furious and it felt good. Made him feel strong, unstoppable. Ready to rewrite the world so it would never dismiss him again.

Never make him powerless him again, never get between him and those who belonged to him. And there was this enemy _/prey/_ just right there and getting in the middle and distracting him. It had no business being there. Trying to get in his way. Contesting his claim on his / _bitch_ / mate.

Not the same enemy who had dared to trap him, but in his way anyway, and that was enemy enough.

He grabbed the weapon that would have struck him, and struck back. It was so laughably easy, making him feel insulted - had that attack been supposed to hurt him?

Never ignore me again. Never make me powerless again. Never get between me and mine again.

Blood and tears on his prey's face, realizing defeat. It just made him angrier. Should have noticed earlier.

He cocked back his claws.

\- Soft baby face. Round cheeks. Baby scent still.

Konohamaru was looking back at him, horror and betrayal already bleeding out of his face.

He was hurting one of his. Why was he hurting one of his?

/ _Betrayal_ / he thought, almost like a question but no, that wasn't right, that wasn't why he'd been so angry. Not betrayal, it hadn't been, so why was he

god

not Konohamaru at all underneath him, sprawled on the ground, not Konohamaru but a child all the same, huge baby eyes and baby face and blind unconscious trust, because they'd had fun together and adversaries didn't mean enemies at all, and surely Naruto wouldn't - Naruto wouldn't.

He was the one who'd betrayed first.

He threw himself off the child he'd been straddling, redhead little boy he'd impaled on his own spear a second ago. Gagged on the reek of blood and guts.

He wanted to kill things, he was so angry but Konohamaru was not a thing, Konohamaru was his little-buddy student almost-cub (and Naruto had betrayed him first.)

He crawled back on hands and heels. Sat. Breathed. Konohamaru wasn't here on the island. He was back home. He was safe.

Could have been Hanabi instead, though. Hey, Hinata-chan, I killed / _ate_ / your little sister. How much do you like me now?

God. They weren't here, either of them, but there was a child here right now and Naruto still remembered the way he'd torn that spear out of his hand and driven it right back through him, remembered the noise it made and the soft impact, almost like hitting a pillow.

"Naruto?" someone called. It took him a second to recognize the raw, wheezing voice.

He looked down the slope and it was almost worse than the child. There was blood all over his mate and she cradled her arm as she struggled to her knees. The blood he could have ignored, even a small drop spread a lot and wounds didn't have to be deep to paint someone all over, but he remembered the feel and taste of her flesh in his mouth and the sound of her bones cracking, like he might wake to remember someone's voice talking next to him as he slept.

He'd done that to her too.

"Naruto?"

He remembered her disrespecting him and for a second he was furious enough he started moving into a crouch, lifting his claws. She'd thought he was weak. Despite all his power she thought he was weak, inside, where it counted the most.

He _had_ to prove her wrong. Being weak wasn't tolerable.

"...Are you alright?" she asked in a strangled voice.

He wasn't. God. He really wasn't. Naruto shook his head to clear it, rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. Everything looked too sharp, too bright. Someone was sobbing in pure terror and the first thought he had wasn't ' _hurt? Help?_ ' but / _food_ /.

"I. Sakura. I..."

There was a pause, and he heard her start to walk up the slope, slowly, cautious. He could smell her acrid fear from there.

It made him sick with dark pleasure and interest, a misplaced sense of rightness.

"I've got to go," he decided. He pushed himself up, standing. It felt a little unnatural, exposing his stomach like this, making his stance less stable.

She was standing a dozen feet down and she froze when he moved, calculations running through her eyes, how far she should jump, where she should kick him to defend herself. "-wait. You can't. N-Naruto. You have to stay."

He laughed dryly. The way she said his name, it sounded like she wasn't even sure it was the right one. "What for?"

"You're my teammate! You've got to watch my back. That's why..."

He laughed again. Protect her? What a joke. He was the one who'd done that to them.

Sakura licked her lips nervously, took a hesitant step closer. "I'll worry if -"

He flinched. "If you can't see where I'm coming from?"

"That's not what I was going to say!"

Naruto turned away, rubbing his face again. He still had claws, they wouldn't leave. "... Sorry. I've got to. I'll stay close. Our camp, okay? Gotta... stuff. Get our stuff."

He kicked off the rock before Sakura could call him back.

He ran. There were thickets and boulders and things. No animals, not even mice, he'd scared them all away. He was frustrated and glad about that both. He overshot their camp, he was running so fast. Whatever. Landed in the river, didn't even bother gathering chakra to stay on the surface. Ran against the water.

It was cold. It dragged at him. Tripped him, rose up to his chest, sank him into deep holes with no warning, dragging him backward. Relentlessly flowed against him.

He found a rock emerging in the middle of the stream and draped his arms over it, letting his legs dangle in the current.

What the hell had happened. What the hell had he _done_.

What had _Kyuubi_ done?

He felt so immensely stupid. Somehow, subconsciously, he'd trusted the fox wouldn't be that bad - fierce and angry and hard to manage, but manageable in the end. Because they were learning to live together, weren't they? Naruto let him see through his eyes sometimes. Let him rise close when he was with his mates. Kyuubi was always sarcastic and disturbing, but possessive of them too and for that Naruto could accept a lot. He'd learned how to hunt, had embraced the pleasure that came from it - it was a Kyuubi thing but Naruto could give some ground, couldn't he? Because he didn't really like being a jailer for someone's life sentence. And Kyuubi _was_ someone, not just a mass of evil chakra that spoke; he had a past, and a personality, and tastes of his own.

Naruto felt so completely stupid for trusting him, even just a little. He felt dirty, too, for the rage he'd embraced so wholeheartedly. For the wariness and fear in his Sakura-chan's eyes.

For betraying first.

* * *

**\--**

**(Sasuke)**

The sun had set at some point and he hadn't noticed. While he jogged back, Sasuke realized with surprise that the whole thing - deciding to camp by the river, getting ambushed by the summoner team, the landslide, the escape, the second ambush that had killed Maneki, his return - it hadn't taken more than three hours tops. Probably closer to two.

It wasn't really dark yet, though.

Sakura's tunic was spotted brown with half-dry blood. That was what Sasuke noticed first, before the small redheaded body that lay sprawled in the dust, a spear protruding from its guts.

He couldn't feel Kyuubi's chakra anywhere, but then again the fox-demon could have decided he was tired of terrifying prey into fleeing and figured out how to hide that surging flow so he could lay in wait instead.

If Kyuubi was still around, he'd deal with it. Because he could see two shell-shocked children clinging to each other as they crouched beside Sasuke's teammate, staring down at the small motionless form of their third.

Shit. Just - shit. And after he had spent so much time and energy to get the summoner team out of harm's way. He had expected that other teams might move in to check on the cause of the dust cloud, but he hadn't envisioned that result. It was surprising the other two kids weren't in pieces as well.

He kicked loose pebbles as a warning, saw three bowed heads jerk up, Sakura's hand fly to her shuriken pouch.

Her other arm was tucked tight against her belly and he could see dried blood and a bruise that went from elbow to wrist. The wrist was a little swollen as well. Sasuke's eyes narrowed.

"Sasuke-kun," she said, and her voice sounded so strange he stopped in his tracks, still a dozen feet away from them. Exhausted was one word for it. Blank, only at the surface. Scratchy, the kind that comes from screaming.

The two genin looked completely shell-shocked, the white of their eyes showing too much, clinging to each other like children instead of like ninja. Too young for that mess, Sasuke thought, and ignored the fact that Team Seven had been just that age the first time around, when they ran into Orochimaru. He wasn't exactly a proper benchmark for trauma tolerance.

His first thought was to ask what had happened, but it was clear enough. There were more urgent things. "Where is he?" he asked, crouching on the other side of the body.

Sakura inhaled quickly and shook her head, as if to shake her brain awake. "He went to the campsite."

Sasuke blinked. "... Kyuubi went _where_?"

"No - Naruto." Sakura blinked back, eyes widening in surprise and then narrowing. "He just - woke up. I thought you'd convinced them to do something."

Sasuke broke eye contact, looked down at the small redhead pinned to the ground with its own weapon. Failure all around today. "No. We were attacked. The healer died." He raked a hand through his hair. At least Kyuubi wasn't a problem anymore. That explained why he couldn't feel him anywhere.

Shit. The kid looked even younger than Konohamaru. Naruto was going to take that so much worse than Maneki's death. Sasuke should have stayed, even if that would have meant getting beaten up -

The body was breathing.

"... Sakura?" He'd thought the ribbon tied to the spear shaft was catching some kind of faint breeze, but that wasn't it at all. "Why is he still...?"

She sneaked a quick look at the two trembling kids and replied quietly. "He's pinned. It goes all the way through into the bedrock. I can't pull hard enough to free him without putting dirt in the wound and tearing it open even wider, and I can't - I can't heal fast enough to fix him before he hemorrhages. There's - organs. Stuff. I never learned that." She scrubbed at her face with a dirty hand, exhausted. "Did you see any of the jounin? I can't fix this."

"I didn't."

Sasuke didn't like this at all. They were supposed to be around, even more so than at their first chuunin exam. With all the problems regarding the integration of Mist into the alliance, how wary they'd all been that Mist's history of violence would make the test all too brutal, how the higher-ups insisted on jounin-held tokens as a way to avoid leaving no option but bloody battle - there should have been so many jounin keeping watch over the genin they should have been unable to turn around without tripping on one.

But they couldn't afford to sit and wait to be rescued. Sasuke got up, frowned at the two other kids. He stepped over the redhead's spread legs and nudged the girl with his foot, not very gently.

"Alright," he ordered briskly. "That's enough. We need cover and warmth. Go look for wood, dry grass, anything that can burn without too much smoke."

They looked up at him in dazed confusion.

He remembered fighting the two of them, the boy with the glasses and the short-haired girl. She'd spat poison at his face even as her teammate fumbled through a textbook-correct, unoriginal kawarimi. He wasn't surprised when she climbed to her feet first.

He crouched on the other side of the boy, waited until his teammates had stepped away.

"Sakura, I'm going to cut him free. Hold the shaft."

Sakura's hands clenched tight on the bottom of the spear, just over the skin. Sasuke caught a good hold a little higher, sent a tendril of lightning-chakra down his kunai, and sliced through the wood in one clean stroke.

Getting to the part of the shaft that was underneath proved much harder. In the end Sakura moved the kid's upper body on her lap and shifted it up the shaft, gritting her teeth when that tore through the weak layer of scabbing and blood flowed again. The angle was awkward as well. Sasuke cut the shaft as short as he could, and then quickly pushed his balled-up shirt around it as a cushion, so the weight of the body wouldn't push the wood back through. For a minute, Sasuke and Sakura watched the kid's gray face, waiting, but after the first hitch he started taking shallow little breaths and didn't stop again.

"Stubborn," Sasuke whispered. Maybe he would even survive. Sasuke wiped his hands on his pants and got back up. "Let's move him against that rock to get him out of the open, and then I'll go find Naruto."

They worked in silence. It was quickly done, though, the boy moved as smoothly as possible and a quick Katon to light the fire. Sasuke finished setting up traps with his leftover wire and straightened up.

Sakura was rubbing her stomach discreetly, like she didn't want him to notice.

"Sakura?"

She caught the direction of his gaze and shrugged, looking back down at the redhead kid to avoid his eyes. "It's nothing, just reverse-backlash. I had so much chakra shoved at me for so long and then it just went poof. It feels a little weird."

Sasuke stared at her for a second, not sure he was convinced. "Huh."

She laughed suddenly, dry and humorless. "It's funny. I was so afraid Naruto would become too foxlike. I wasn't scared of Kyuubi at all - I mean, he was even helpful with the seal, and he would never hurt the mother of his offspring, right? Heh. Heheh."

Sasuke's fingers curled into a fist. He stayed silent for a few seconds, no words coming to his mind - none that would have been welcome right now. Sakura let out a long, shaky sigh, and watched the brunette girl come back with an armful of branches. Sasuke glanced at the younger kunoichi and then back at his teammate.

"You gonna be okay?" he asked quietly, before the girl came in range.

"...Yeah. Just - Naruto left before I could talk to him and -"

"I'll talk to him," he assured her.

He wanted to assure her of other things. That it was over now. That things would be okay, they'd just forget and go on. He'd never been an optimist, and he wasn't a hypocrite either, so he didn't.

"We'll be back soon," he added, because that he could promise, even if he had to propel Naruto along via a kick combo to his ass.

The kid's teammates were around, but busy with other things, not looking at either of them. Sasuke wasn't sure he wanted to touch anyone after this clusterfuck of failures and dead people, but he hated to see her like that. Running on automatic, unable to break down and release her emotions. Subdued. He did it all the time but it looked wrong on Sakura.

He brushed his hand against her shoulder, standing at her side. She twitched under his hand, looked up, gave him an unconvincing little smile. It didn't even feel like she was really seeing him.

It twanged in his chest when he realized this time around his mere presence wouldn't be enough to make Sakura's world right again.

The root of this was Naruto.

He let his hand fall. The sooner he brought back that idiot, the sooner his teammates could fix each other. "Alright. I'm going."

Sakura nodded absently. "Take care." Her eyes slid back to the unconscious kid.

Sasuke turned away, went back to the river, found their camp again.

Naruto wasn't there. Sasuke felt a spike of - some feeling he didn't want to think about. He snatched up his pack, Naruto's jacket, abandoned on the bank, and kept moving. He'd come back for the rest afterward. If some other team was lying in wait - if they'd caught Naruto by surprise... Unlikely, but he didn't have a clue what state Naruto was in.

He went up the river, because the trees and lush grass quickly disappeared once out of the canyon and Naruto would probably want to keep to familiar surroundings.

For a second as he saw the body draped limply over that rock he thought Naruto might be dead too, ambushed and left where he'd fallen. But no, that couldn't happen. Just couldn't. To prove it, he picked up a rock and threw it; it hit Naruto's perch with a loud crack.

Naruto startled. Good. Something in Sasuke's stomach unclenched. Even though Naruto should have been aware of his presence sooner.

Naruto didn't turn around to check who was there. Not good.

"Naruto." Sasuke's voice came out curt, more than weary. He didn't know whether Naruto could tell who was behind him, but that was no reason to keep his back on him that way. It was either as if Naruto wanted to ignore him or wanted to be captured, and both were unacceptable.

He hadn't felt anything much for a while, but now he was starting to feel angry.

"Get up," he ordered, voice harsh.

Naruto's shoulders stiffened.

"You left Sakura alone, exhausted, saddled with a bunch of _kids_. And you're not even getting supplies?"

"... Sasuke, leave off."

"Let me think - _no_." Sasuke dropped his things on the bank, walked up the river's surface, and kicked water at Naruto's bare back. It didn't make a big difference to how wet Naruto was; his hair wasn't even half dry and his pants soaked through.

Naruto whirled around so fast Sasuke jumped back into a fighting crouch without thought. His teammate's eyes were Kyuubi-red still, thick fangs in his mouth, cheeks barred with spreading whisker marks.

There was rage in his eyes. Fear, too.

A challenge, in the tilt of his chin.

Sasuke gave an unimpressed snort as he forced his burst of temper down. "Get a hold of yourself, alright."

Naruto stared at him for a few seconds, balanced on the balls of his feet like he was thinking of pouncing anyway, but the dryness and lack of fear in Sasuke's voice tipped the balance. He relaxed slowly - very slowly, still on edge.

Still... not normal. Not right.

Which meant Sasuke couldn't get angry at him either. He'd been calm and steady for Sakura; it came easy, when he was cradled in the functioning numbness that came from seeing death, from having to keep moving anyway, to salvage things. He wouldn't have minded blowing off steam on Naruto. But Naruto needed him steady as well, and that was... unsettling, unexpected, but something he couldn't mess up even so.

"Better?" he asked.

Naruto let out a long, shuddering breath and made a conscious effort to unclench his white-knuckled hands. "...Mrgh."

"Naruto." Sasuke paused, weighing his words. They didn't have time for Naruto to have a little breakdown in private. They didn't have time for comfort. Sasuke sucked at it anyway. But being too harsh would have the opposite effect. "... Tell me what's going on."

Naruto's shoulder and arm twitched and his upper lip curled briefly in disdainful irritation. He closed his eyes, still red.

"Status, shinobi," Sasuke demanded, quiet but unrelenting.

"Fuck you, leave me alone," Naruto said, but it came with a groan, more of a plea than a real insult.

Sasuke swallowed another flicker of unease. Wrong, wrong. "You know I can't do that."

Naruto slumped on the spot, sat on the rock with a bone-jarring thump, head and shoulders bowed in what looked like defeat. "Sasuke, just-"

"I'm not leaving," he countered preemptively.

Naruto sighed and started massaging his temples.

"My head hurts," he admitted quietly. "And I'm not. I don't. I..." A deep, bracing breath. "I'm not thinking right."

Sasuke bit his tongue on a 'As if you ever do.' He couldn't have faked the right level of teasing dryness right now.

"I'm so angry," Naruto whispered. "I'm so angry."

He didn't look angry right now. Closer to terrified. Sasuke told himself to relax his jaw before he broke a tooth.

"Alright," he said; it was inane but he didn't have a clue what else to say to that. He told himself to just accept it and move on. "What do you need to keep it under control?"

Naruto flicked a startled look at him through his bangs. "What?"

"The anger. If you could get rid of it, you would. So it's not possible. _Alright_. But obviously you can control it." He spread his arms a little in demonstration; Naruto hadn't attacked him after all.

"I don't - " Bewildered, Naruto shook his head. Shuddered, fists clenching and releasing.

"What do you need?"

There was a long moment of silence.

"...No challenges. None at all."

Sasuke gave a cautious nod. "That's... going to be _interesting_ , but alright."

Naruto let out a short burst of laughter and tilted up his head. His eyes were a muddy, intermediate color - an ugly bruise-purple, still more red than blue. The pupils were thin cat-slices.

"What else?"

Naruto looked away. "... I don't think I can... stay close. So I'll just... I'll take perimeter watch. Okay?"

Sasuke considered it. Someone had to do it, and he didn't think Naruto would want to be too close to the kids and Sakura yet. Anyway, night was falling fast - he checked the sky. No, evening was pretty much there, the sun had come down almost a hour ago. He hadn't noticed he was losing colors because even when his sharingan wasn't activated his pupils still adapted well, giving him details and movements in stark clarity. But they needed to bunk down for the night. Might as well allow Naruto to calm down by doing something useful that wouldn't let him feel crowded.

"That works. Let's go pick up our things and move the camp."

He caught a scowl on Naruto's face at his words, but the blond inhaled slowly and forced himself to relax. Too much like an order, then? Damn but this was going to get frustrating. He erased a frown from his face and waited for Naruto to move first, to give a signal. He watched the blond unfold, climb to his feet.

They stared at each other for a second, before Sasuke made himself break eye contact and look over Naruto's shoulder. He should have looked down at his feet to seem properly submissive but his every instinct rebelled against that.

"This is just wrong," he commented dryly.

"Heh. Yeah." A pause; Naruto tilted his head, faintly disconcerted. "I don't think I'm gonna like it much in the long run. I want... I want to fight you. It's not - it's too easy if I don't have to fight you."

"But it wouldn't help if we fought now," Sasuke observed. Naruto let out a strange laugh.

"No. It really wouldn't. I'd eat your face, and then I'd probably rape you. I wish to god I was joking."

"Missing a face might get problematic," Sasuke replied blandly, refusing to be impressed. It was obvious Naruto was hoping he'd be scared off and give him space. As if. "On the other hand, girls would stop sighing after me in the street."

Naruto muttered under his breath, more normal-grumpy than half out of his skin with nerves for a short moment. "Ass."

"Yeah, I guess I'd still have that going for me."

He startled Naruto into laughing, a real laugh this time around.

"Yeah... I guess it _is_ pretty nice," he agreed, almost normal. But he kept chuckling longer than he should have, breathless and slightly tinged with hysteria. "I guess it is. ... But if you try to use it on other people I'll - I... I'd be pissed."

Kyuubi was still too close to Naruto's mind, Sasuke noted. He'd planned to say something else. More graphic. With more threats. Sasuke nodded soberly. "I wasn't planning on it," he promised, voice quiet. "I've got a boyfriend already."

He smirked a little bit when Naruto's head jerked around at the epithet.

"He's the possessive type, apparently," he said dryly.

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Sasuke only broke eye contact when Naruto's slightly too wide, slightly too wet eyes started to narrow into a bothered stare. There, no more challenge.

"... Damn straight he is." Naruto stepped up to him slowly and bumped his fist against his shoulder in a pretend-punch that wouldn't have moved a civilian in high heels. Sasuke was neither. At this point it was almost closer to a caress.

This was getting embarrassingly sappy. But playing on Naruto's gentler side was the only way Sasuke really saw to counter the way his wilder feelings echoed off Kyuubi's.

This was probably as good as Naruto's mindset was going to get for a good long while, with his chakra still out of whack.

"We should go back to the camp," he said, sticking his hands in his pockets and gazing at the scenery around them so he wouldn't have to really acknowledge Naruto's expression again. It was too embarrassing to see him with no mask on.

"Alright, alright."

They started walking down the river, Sasuke scanning the surroundings for threats, though he kept his body language relaxed and his hands tucked away. Naruto slunk along like a predator vaguely thinking about maybe going for dinner. That was much better than him actively looking around for prey; Sasuke still made a note to look for snacks to shove at him.

He tried to think of an innocuous topic of conversation to keep Naruto distracted, but could find nothing. The only things he was wondering about were Sakura and the half-dead kid and he wasn't going to bring them up.

"Man, I'm so ready to get the fuck off this island," Naruto grumbled, kicking at the surface of the water. "I hate this place."

Sasuke grunted his agreement. "Still need more tokens though. I'm not coming back in six months."

Naruto flinched and looked away. Sasuke berated himself. Yeah, bring up tokens and more teams to kill for them while you're at it. Stupid.

"... Weren't the jounin-sensei supposed to carry some around?" Naruto said after a slightly too long pause.

Sasuke was willing to ignore that in the name of keeping the conversation looking casual. He stepped on the bank. Their camp wasn't too far from there, just after this bend in the river.

"Yeah, but I haven't seen one of them for hours." He couldn't keep his irritation out of his voice. "What the hell is up with that anyway? They should have come running."

"Oh, they'll be around soon enough," said an amused voice, "but we do have a few minutes."

Sasuke froze in his tracks. At his side Naruto had gone stiff with shock. He could feel demon chakra spike against his skin.

A tall, broad-shouldered man stood in the middle of their abandoned camp.

He had a huge sword effortlessly propped up on one shoulder. On the other shoulder was slung a limp body.

That wasn't what Sasuke zeroed in on first, though. It was dark and colors were hard to see, but he knew his skin was slate blue and the clouds on his cloak arterial red.

They came as a pair. It was all Sasuke could think of. They came as a pair.

Itachi.

"Gaara," Naruto choked out.

"It's shameful how little security the hidden villages keep around their demon bearers nowadays, wouldn't you say?"

Kisame took a step forward, distracting Sasuke from the suddenly suspiciously empty space all around them.

"I don't suppose you'll come quietly," he said, and smiled, all teeth bared.


	8. Chapter 8

_Gaara._

_He's mine you have no right, let him go, why isn't he moving. Red head lolling, arms limp. Dead -- no he can't be no no no._

_Blue man smirking, predator challenge like he's saying look at my see-saw teeth I could eat him, I_ will _eat him and you can't stop me._

_Hate. Kill._

\--

One moment she was sitting with her back to the small campfire, listening to two thirteen-year-olds whispering to each other, and rubbing her bare arms discreetly to ward off the creeping cold.

The next second, a tendril of liquid fire was making its way through her inner coils.

Sakura lost a second to surprise and dread. It might have simply been Naruto drawing close, bringing his chakra closer -- but it didn't feel that way. Stiffening, she prayed for the brunette girl and the boy with glasses not to notice a thing, as she wrestled that spark of demon chakra to her arms, away from her belly. Her nails had stayed long and pointed -- they would until she could trim them, she couldn't make them go away like Naruto did -- but now she could feel the tips curving into vicious hooks where they pressed against her forearms.

She was in the middle of converting it to more normal chakra, chakra she could allow to radiate through her body, when another surge hit her.

Not just Naruto coming closer -- the rise would have been smoother. He was drawing on Kyuubi's chakra again. Had the fox-demon taken over again? She bit her lip. She needed to go and check -- what if he was fighting Sasuke? Kyuubi would be angry enough to do real damage. But the kids...

... weren't whispering to each other anymore. Head whipping around, she expected to find them staring at her, having noticed... she didn't know. _Something_. She found them slumped against each other, eyes closed. Asleep.

 _'They must be very tired'_ , she thought, a little sad, tired too; and then she saw the pinched look on the little redhead's face slowly smooth out into deeper, peaceful sleep, and she understood.

Genjutsu.

"KAI!" Sakura jumped on her feet, eyes wide open, hands locked in a dispelling seal.

He was standing right there in the open, still and patient as if he'd been there for the past ten minutes or even ten hours and would still be here in another ten. She spared a thought to be horrified that maybe he had been there that long, and she hadn't noticed.

Black cloak, red clouds.

That achingly familiar face.

They weren't identical. Sasuke's face wasn't quite as long, a little more triangular than it was oval. Sasuke's hair was thicker, wilder. His eyes had never been that cold, that... remote. Empty.

It was a strange thing to notice, but the thought came anyway -- even devoid of any care, any humanity, Itachi's eyes were more beautiful than Sasuke's.

And this was just about the stupidest mistake she could have made. Either he didn't want to lock her into a genjutsu, or she was already inside it and hadn't noticed. She grabbed those tendrils of demon fire blindly, not even trying to control them, and pulled for all she was worth. She needed more, she didn't have enough. She needed the unbridled chaos of it to shake loose any genjutsu he might have laid onto her.

"Ah." He inclined his head, thoughtful. "We had wondered where the echo came from."

The chakra. The demon chakra.

She was using something Akatsuki wanted for themselves. She felt the blood drain from her face.

This was a nightmare. Alone against Uchiha Itachi, who had killed so many. A whole clan. _(he'd killed her baby's grandparents.)_ A whole clan with the same abilities as Sasuke's. 

A whole family. _(her parents dead on the ground, Yukihiro the wise and Hana the mama bear -- oh, so that was how it felt.)_

 _What_ could she do? Run? He'd get her from behind. Attack? She couldn't even hold her own against his little brother. He'd see through any genjutsu she could put up to cover her movements. If she called for Sasuke he'd fight and lose _(he'd get killed)_. But without support she wasn't going to survive. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

She couldn't make a plan, she couldn't _think_. It burned in her belly, in her head. What could she do? Nothing would work, nothing --

The demon chakra stopped welling up for a heart-stopping second.

Something was happening to Naruto.

_(he was going to kill Naruto too.)_

Red chakra rushed back, exploded through her coils again. Sakura grabbed it and pulled out more, already running. Snarling.

She was so angry.

Angry and afraid and grieving. She needed him dead to make sure none of it would happen again. Not to her own.

Uchiha Itachi watched her come at him, unmoving. She hated his frozen face, empty eyes, not like Sasuke at all.

He threw a handful of kunai to stop her momentum. She lashed out without thought. Claws of demon fire slashed through metal _(it hurt it hurt oh god her hand)_ , scythed out, flying at him so fast. He dodged; the bottom edge of his cloak didn't, shredded to tatters. Her sight was shifting into weird vivid colors once again. So angry; she'd never hated anyone as much, never to the point of wanting them _dead_ \-- but now she did. 

_I get it now, Sasuke._

She slashed another set of fire claws his way, crouched low to the ground, watched him dodge. The attack was fast, better than any she had on her own. It burned up her coils and her hand was already blistering, but she'd care about that later.

She wanted to just pounce, wanted to tackle him to the ground and then tear into him -- knees, elbows, claws, headbutts and her teeth, all the same, a flurry of pummeling hits. She held herself back somehow, balanced on the knife's edge of rage and determination. But she wanted, wanted, _wanted_ \--

But she needed to get him in the air where he couldn't dodge.

She threw herself forward to avoid another handful of kunai, landed in a roll, leg extended, scything through the air.

Her heel hit the ground and released every drop of chakra she'd gathered there, shattering bedrock and throwing a huge cloud of eye-stinging dust in the air. She was yanking more chakra through the pipeline before she was even back in a proper crouch.

Slash, three arcs of liquid fire. Throwing herself forward in their wake.

She raced past the claws as they hit Itachi's body, and she kept running away, as fast as she could, hurtling herself from boulder to piled-up rubble to felled tree. When she heard the familiar noise of a clone exploding behind her, she wasn't even surprised. Of course he'd send a clone, of course she hadn't hit him, she'd been _right_ not to let the rage take her and pounce. She clenched her teeth on a scream of frustration, even though she was sure he didn't need noise to pinpoint her.

There was nothing else to do but run away -- dodge at random and wait for him to get her from behind. At least he had no reason to double back and go for the three kids; unconscious as they were, they were no threat to him. They were safe. But for her it was different, and any second now he would -- any second --

"Sakura, DOWN!"

As she threw herself face down on the ground, she couldn't help the total bafflement that came from realizing Sasuke had been warning her away from something huge and blue -- not something brother-shaped at all.

Where was Itachi?

\--

Sakura's arms were covered in ugly red blisters, cracked skin seeping blood. Even making a fist must have been painful. There was no time to coddle her; Sasuke grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her on her feet, pivoting to stand at her back before she was even done getting her footing.

Naruto howled out in rage and went flying at the Akatsuki again. Sasuke already knew how the attack would go -- a swipe of that huge, toothed sword, Naruto falling as his chakra ran out with the part of his body that had been hit like shredded meat, then another red-gold explosion and another crazy charge before flesh was even done sizzling closed.

It made Sasuke feel sick, no matter how fast he healed.

He'd been watching for an opening to get Gaara away from Kisame, which would leave Naruto free to go all-out, but Kisame... He was good, Sasuke reluctantly acknowledged. No opening to be found yet. Even wielding his sword one-handed against Naruto, the man was still smirking, almost indulgent, amused.

"Report," he gritted out.

Even without looking her way, he could feel Sakura bracing herself.

"Uchiha Itachi is here," she said, abrupt.

Ah.

... He'd known that. He _had_. The second he saw Hoshigaki Kisame he had known his brother would be there as well. 

Hearing the words, though --

"We need to get Gaara back," Sakura said.

Sasuke shook his head. We? Gaara? He laughed, a dry little laugh that wasn't amused at all. Like they could worry about saving Gaara -- they had to save themselves first.

Itachi was here.

"Three to one and a hostage," she said, fast, clipped. "I don't know what he's doing but he'll come soon and we need to be four against two -- Sasuke-kun, _focus_!" 

A harsh elbow in his ribs made him stiffen, more out of outrage than pain. He hissed between his clenched teeth, scanned the area Sakura had come hurtling from once again. His sharingan saw nothing, of course, not even the telltale off-colored blur of a genjutsu.

Naruto hurtled past again; Sakura took in a shuddering breath. The stifled pain in her voice -- Sasuke shook his head.

Sakura. Naruto.

His brother.

"It's a trap, we can't afford not to pay attention to--"

"We can't afford to just stay put and wait, we're not going to see it coming either way!"

... Shit. She was right. He hated it, but she was right. When Itachi -- when he showed up, Sasuke would attack, but in the meantime -- from the corner of his eye he watched Naruto fall again, belly like mincemeat. Kisame chuckled derisively.

His brother.

His teammates.

Snarling out his frustration, Sasuke turned on his heel, pulled out his last length of wire from his pocket, unspooled an arms' length of braided steel with his teeth..

"He uses water. Sword steals chakra. Can't close in or use jutsu."

He threaded the wire through a shuriken.

"Break the ground," he ordered. "Charge."

Sending Sakura in arm's reach -- he hated it. Her taijutsu just plain wasn't --

_'Pretend I'm Naruto.'_

With the way Kisame moved, he needed the sharingan to aim and that was it.

Pale with fatigue, she didn't say a word, didn't question him. Started to run. The chakra on her fist was demon-orange and unstable, lashing her with little licks of fire. Sasuke snarled. Even gluing his eyes to Kisame's every movement couldn't stop his sharingan seeing it.

Now Naruto was slowing down, blind rage dimmed for a kind of calculating predatory awareness -- feinting, low to the ground, right-left-pounce. The kind of testing feint a dog would do, the kind Kisame didn't buy for a minute.

Kept his attention just long enough that he was barely starting to glance over his shoulder when Sakura's fist hit the ground. Sasuke was already in the air, seeing the way the ground would break before it did, seeing the way Kisame would stumble -- just barely, before he righted himself.

He dodged the kunai Sasuke had sent flying with some fancy footwork, letting it thunk harmlessly in the ground.

When he landed his ankle brushed against the wire.

Sasuke let the Chidori flow down braided metal.

"Now!" he screamed, already charging after his teammates. Kisame had fallen on a knee, the hand he'd left on Gaara's back all along grabbing blindly for the sword. Sakura darted in from the back, claws snagging Gaara's collar and pulling.

The limp body was still in the middle of slipping off his shoulder when Kisame whirled on the spot, sword slashing with his momentum parallel to the ground, coming like a meteor at Sakura's middle.

Sasuke was too far.

Naruto wasn't. He landed on Kisame's back like a ton of bricks, all claws out, howling. Sasuke darted in, snatched Sakura's collar and yanked her and the unconscious body she was holding backward. He grabbed one of Gaara's arms and they both ran toward a nearby rock they could use as cover.

Gaara's arm felt weird under his hand, damp and grainy. Sasuke left it to Sakura to figure out; he dumped the unconscious ninja at the foot of the rock and turned to put his back to it. It wouldn't stop attacks from above or the front, but that was still something, one side he didn't need to watch.

His brother was still nowhere to be seen. The attack hadn't taken very long, fifteen seconds maybe -- but even then ...

Naruto and Kisame were still fighting -- more of a brawl than anything else; Naruto was under his guard now and clearly intended to stay there, slashing and doing his best to clamp his jaws on anything with accessible veins. Kisame punched hard, though; Sasuke watched Naruto's head snap to the side, and then a kick caught him under the ribs, sending him flying back in their direction. He rolled on the ground before landing back in a crouch, snarling. Sasuke didn't think he'd stopped at any point.

Someone was coughing behind him; wet, raw sounds, like he'd drowned at some point. Sasuke glanced back briefly, watched Sakura help Gaara sit.

"Can you fight?" he asked, over Sakura's "are you alright".

"Drained..." Gaara wiped damp sand off his arm, expression blank, not quite awake yet. "Can't move it wet. Too heavy."

Sasuke briefly considered scorching the sand armor dry. At this range the heat would probably do Gaara in.

"I'm going," he said, and took a couple steps away from their shelter. Sakura needed to rest and fix Gaara enough so he'd be useful, and he needed to help Naruto get rid of this guy before Itachi got bored and decided to intervene.

Itachi would probably intervene if his partner was about to get killed, actually.

It worked for Sasuke.

Behind him the ground trembled as Sakura punched rocks into dust for Gaara to use. He kept walking, until he was standing with Naruto.

"Hey, dumbass. You need to wake up now."

Naruto's long snarl was briefly interrupted by an irritated snort. Sasuke's lips twitched.

Heh. Maybe it would even work.

Beside him, Naruto raked his claws on the ground, eyes narrowed as he watched for an opening. Sasuke nodded faintly. If Naruto was aware of his actions then they could fight together, and together they weren't going to be so easily held off. Kisame seemed aware of it; he was bringing his sword in a blocking position, smug smirk replaced by a vaguely put-upon expression. His cloak was scorched and he was bleeding from quite a few bite and claw marks, though none of them looked deep enough to be debilitating.

Sasuke nodded slowly. An idea was taking form. "If you get him to let go of the sword..."

"Kisame," said a low, almost-soft voice at his back.

A block of ice had replaced Sasuke's entrails. He didn't remember turning, but there he was, facing the rock.

Sakura was leaning on one knee, green-gloved hands on Gaara's back, Gaara's head hanging low with exhaustion as he gathered sand to him, tendril after thin tendril.

On top of the rock his brother stood, gazing at the battlefield. Their eyes met.

Sasuke couldn't breathe through the rage and the --

Rage. Just rage, just hate, and outrage, how dare he show his face -- how dare he!

"We're running out of time," his brother said dispassionately, eyes gliding away from his as if he weren't worth stopping for, as if he'd been weighed and found not worth the bother. Sasuke's hands started shaking.

Not again, he wasn't going to be dismissed again, never again.

"We'll have to make do with only one tailed beast today."

Ignoring Kisame's halfhearted grumbling protest and Naruto's snarled "Like fuck!", Itachi tilted his head, looked down at Gaara. Sakura jerked into movement, snatched the redhead's arm and threw herself backward. She stumbled, landed on her ass, still dragging Gaara along, and he wanted to yell at her to let him go, damn it, just run out of range but there were too many other words already in his throat and none of them were addressed to her.

Gaara did it for her, sweeping her aside with his arm, and for that a small part of Sasuke thought he would try to keep him alive, if he could, but he knew he wasn't going to be able to spare the attention.

"Yes, yes," said Kisame behind him, even as rocks shifted under his feet. "We can't allow the girl to keep taking chakra from the tailed beast either."

He sounded... patient, a little amused as he gave his own reminder.

Sakura was still sitting where Gaara had knocked her aside, pale with blood and chakra loss, pink hair in disarray, head tilted up to stare at Itachi.

"That is true," Itachi said quietly, and dived for her, katana first.

There was no thought. ( _fathermotherauntieSAKURA_ )

It didn't even hurt when the sword dug into his back. It was just cold. He twisted to the side. If it was deep enough (he couldn't tell) he might manage to tear it out of Itachi's hand, counterattack.

He failed. The blade went out. Blood trailed warm tracks down his side. He shifted higher up Sakura's body, so his upper chest would catch headshots, so if his brother went for Sasuke's heart then Sakura's belly would--

"The child," Itachi said behind him -- slow, like a revelation.

Sasuke couldn't breathe.

"The rumors were wrong. It isn't Naruto-kun's. It's yours."

Under him Sakura was struggling to push him off. She wasn't going to manage, he was never going to move, he was going to die here, he wasn't going to move.

"Let go, let go," she was saying in between two dry sobs. He couldn't see her face.

He waited for another strike but instead, "Sasuke," said his brother's voice, and then the ground exploded.

No more ground under them. Reflex -- he tried to twist, to control their fall.

It was like being stabbed again. Except this time around it hurt. Things went dark for... a second, maybe two. No more, right? He couldn't afford more. He clawed his way back to consciousness, but the ground -- on the ground again? Hadn't felt the impact. Not a bad thing.

Ground was moving. Bad thing.

Sakura was trying to squirm free. No.

"No," he said. His voice was weak. Strange.

"Stop moving, Uchiha," snapped a strained voice. He didn't recognize it right away.

Wasn't his brother. Wasn't Naruto. Wasn't Kisame. Didn't leave much choice.

"Sasuke-kun, we're safe, let go. We're safe."

He didn't believe her, but he was on his side and that wasn't going to protect her. He rolled -- oh fuck, his back, it was bleeding. Sakura screeched something under him but he didn't listen until he was shielding her again, and then there was a man's hand on the back of his neck to hold him in place. He opened his eyes on reflex, ready to fight. Try to.

He could see the ground over Sakura's shoulder, but it was very far down.

"...Why is there a valley there?" he asked. He was sure they'd been nowhere near close to one.

Wasn't really a valley. Just... a hollow shaped like a half-sphere, perfectly smooth, like the inside of a big bowl. Maybe fifty steps across. It had chewed up a corner of the riverbed, and little rivulets were making their way down. Soon there would be a perfectly circular pond.

Neither Sakura nor Gaara had to answer, because then Naruto did it again.

It was huge, the biggest Rasengan Naruto had ever made by far. It was red, and it didn't swirl so much like a ball twirled on a fingertip as like the eye of a storm. It hit the ground between Itachi and Kisame and the shockwave made whatever Sasuke and the other two rested on wobble. Gaara winced, tugging on their clothes to bring them closer.

Sasuke saw the edge of his sand platform fraying under the effort, and went without protesting, until he was pressed against the redhead's legs. He shoved Sakura straight onto his lap, because Gaara would be the last thing Gaara's sand allowed to fall, wasn't it?

The Akatsuki pair had dodged, again, but the shockwave had caught them too, flinging them backward. Itachi flipped in midair, landed on the first, growing pond. Kisame --

Held his sword in front of his face, and even if he was thrown back as well, the shockwave lost strength toward him and then he was charging again, well before Naruto had managed to reload.

Sasuke tried to jump, but Sakura was the one who wouldn't let him go now, and when he struggled Gaara's sand wrapped around his arms and pulled him back down. They were all yelling at each other but he couldn't even hear himself, he was deaf from the explosion. Naruto would be deaf to his warnings too.

When he looked down again Naruto was kneeling at the bottom of the second bowl, Kisame standing right behind him, the edge of Kisame's sword pressed under his chin.

No.

No, stupid bastard, run, Sasuke would give them Gaara instead if they wanted a demon bearer -- he'd give them Gaara instead and then he'd beat up Naruto for allowing this, for letting himself be taken to keep them safe, he'd -- no, no, no.

Dust swirled amongst the massive clouds the Kyuubi-powered Rasengan had lifted. Itachi, Sasuke thought with despair.

Instead three dogs burst out, maws wide open.

Sasuke stopped moving, watched, vaguely aware his mouth was open, as the dogs went low, snapping at Kisame's ankles. And then stone burst open behind the man as he stumbled, someone surging out and stabbing straight for his unprotected back with lightning in his hand.

Kisame stumbled forward, tripped by Naruto's kneeling body, did an odd little jump to catch himself into a crouch. Naruto slumped to the ground like a felled tree.

Kakashi charged again, his dogs with him in perfect synch. Water rose from the river to blast them away.

Another man burst out of the dust, and then a second and a third on his heels, and none of them was wearing black and red.

Sasuke's view was blurring. He squinted. Wasn't safe yet. He had to watch, know what was going on down there. He closed his eyes for barely one second and when he opened them again Kisame was bleeding from another three wounds on top of Kakashi's shoulder hit.

He saw his brother look up at the three of them for a fraction of second as he swept through the group and caught his stumbling teammate, but before Sasuke could make sense of that look, Itachi had exploded into crows and disappeared along with his partner.

Sakura's hand was gripping his wrist so hard Sasuke couldn't feel it anymore.

He watched jounin and ANBU of a half-dozen villages gather around the twin bowls as they scanned the area with a sense of complete surreality. Kakashi's dogs were sniffing around, and even from up there he could tell they were grumpy from losing the track. It couldn't be over, could it? It was never over, not with his brother.

He was so exhausted he didn't realize right away he wasn't simply passing out when the world swayed under him; and then they were falling from the sky.

He thought absently that it was really kind of high, especially with a big hole in the ground right underneath. Stupid Naruto.

"Oof. You're a bony little fuck, aren't you."

Some woman he didn't know had caught him in mid-air. The way they'd landed, Sasuke's elbow was digging in her ribs. Whatever. Wasn't his brother or Kisame. Wasn't his teammates. He didn't give a damn.

"Medic!"

"They _all_ need a medic! What's yours got?"

Someone tapped his shoulder. Sasuke cracked an eye open to glare at the jounin, who snorted in amusement. She didn't top Morino Ibiki from Konoha's Interrogation Division about facial scars, but she seemed to be gearing up to the attempt. Sasuke halfheartedly considered giving her another one if she didn't let him rest.

Too much effort. "Stab wound. Back."

Someone else was leaning over him, with an Earth Country ANBU mask and green-glowing hands. The green seeped down into him, cooling the pain until he could barely feel it. "Uh huh. What else?"

He considered it. "... Dunno. Tired." He was sure he'd feel it later. Wasn't like Sakura's burned hands or Naruto's -- whatever he'd done to himself. That idiot.

"Yeah, that stab wound is really neat, I should have it closed in no time." It was? He'd moved around. He'd expected worse. "You should just try to sleep in the meantiHEY."

The ANBU medic grabbed his shoulder to push him back down on his side. Sasuke slapped his hand away and scanned the area. Kakashi -- ahh. Standing over Naruto. Naruto was moving -- slowly, but moving. Sakura...

She was close by. She'd apparently fallen closer to Gaara than he had, because the same person had to catch them both and now they were barely an arm's length apart. Someone was fixing her hands, clucking something about the bones. Sasuke rolled on hands and knees, grunting a little when his wound gave a little spurt of fresh blood. Sakura was the closest so that was where he went.

"... Hey."

His throat felt raw. He must have been screaming. He didn't really remember hearing himself.

For a few very long seconds Sakura stared at him, through him. She tugged a hand free from the medic and for a moment Sasuke was sure she was going to slap him.

Her hand caught his shirt instead and tugged. He went, crawling a step closer, two, and then sitting next to her.

"What the hell were you thinking," she whispered, staring ahead into nothing. Sasuke stared that way too, because why not. "He could have killed you. I don't understand how he didn't kill you."

"Mmh," said Sasuke, because there was nothing else to say.

Naruto was stumbling his way to them, punch-drunk, snarling at everyone who tried to get in the middle. He slumped on his knees in front of them, demon-red eyes traveling from Sasuke's face to Sakura's to Gaara's.

He only had two hands, so he grabbed Sasuke and Gaara's unconscious body and did his best to pull everyone into his lap. Or maybe crawl on theirs. It was hard to tell. Sasuke briefly passed out when Naruto's hand pressed too close to his wound; when he opened his eyes again he was slumped on Naruto's shoulder, so he didn't bother to move.

Sakura was curled up right next to him, bent over Gaara's upper body on Naruto's lap so she could tuck her head under Naruto's chin. Looked uncomfortable. Naruto was murmuring something in Sasuke's hair, he wasn't sure what.

"Kids?"

Sasuke grunted halfheartedly in answer to Kakashi's voice. He opened an eye to look over Naruto's shoulder, and Kakashi was there, sitting in a crouch and looking all... cautious. Subdued.

"You're going to have to stop the human ball attempt if you want to be healed."

Naruto growled, a sound more animal than human. No need to clarify that, so Sasuke closed his eyes again. He could feel Sakura move against his side, reluctant. Naruto didn't want to let her go.

"Look at my hands, Naruto. I need the healer, okay? ... Sasuke and Gaara probably do as well."

Sasuke snorted, eyes still closed. Just a little stab wound. He didn't need anything.

Someone moved closer. "Your teammate is right. The Kazekage--"

"I'll kill you," Naruto rasped out. Movement stopped.

Sasuke opened his eyes, met Sakura's. Sighed. Sakura's hands were a burned ruin, so he lifted his own to poke Naruto's chest for her.

"Shut up, stupid."

"They've got to evacuate us," Sakura said. "They can't if -- you have to let go. Okay?"

Stubborn, Naruto didn't move.

"Naruto, it really hurts," she whispered, almost like she was ashamed of her weakness. Naruto made a whimpery sound like a kicked puppy and his arm fell from her shoulder.

Sakura unfolded slowly, staring at his face. Naruto stared back. Sasuke watched them, half-conscious and trying to think of nothing.

He didn't want to think of anything, because otherwise he'd start thinking about his brother and how once again he wasn't worth killing.

How he'd been so weak, how little he had grown, that the only way he was useful was as a meat shield. How he'd been pulled to safety while Naruto fought for them. How Itachi...

"Sasuke?" Kakashi's quiet voice called. "Open your eyes for the medic, Sasuke. Any spinal trauma?"

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "No. ... No trauma."

"Alright. Naruto, help me put him down on the stretcher, and then you can go to your own stretcher."

A growl.

"This is not open for discussion, Naruto."

Another growl, more like a grumble, and hands tilted him down onto rough cloth.

"The kids," Sakura said suddenly. "The kids. That way. Three kids. One of them was..."

Her voice faltered.

"Hurt," she finished, voice quiet. "Impaled. Pretty bad."

Sasuke felt blindly for Naruto with his hand. He wasn't in arm's range anymore, so Sasuke kicked out.

"-- Ow."

"Lie down on your fucking stretcher. Sakura too. If _I_ have to..."

Fuck but he just wanted to sleep. He could feel it coming, inescapable darkness, gently, stubbornly pulling him down.

... He was forgetting something. What was he forgetting?

Oh, that he never wanted to see this fucking island in his life ever again.

"Wait," he said, and grabbed for Kakashi's jacket. Kakashi allowed it, watching him with an eyebrow arched, and allowed Sasuke to nudge him back a second later as well. "Okay... Hey, scar-face."

The woman who'd caught him in midair was still nearby. She snorted, came and leaned over him. "Yep?"

Sasuke squinted up. "Jounin-sensei?"

"Yeah?"

He reached out -- his hand weighed a ton.

"...Lemme guess," she said, staring at the hand on her breast. "You want me to put you out of your misery."

Sasuke snorted. Like he could aim, with his eyesight fuzzy as shit and the blood loss. He let his hand slide down the green jacket. It was so thick he bet she hadn't felt anything anyway.

His hand fell back on his own chest. The eighth and ninth tokens gleamed copper-bright between his fingers.

There, _now_ they had enough of the bastards that the whole thing wouldn't be a complete waste. " 'Kay. Now get us out."

He passed out before he could tell whether or not they'd obeyed.


	9. Aftermath  (Naruto)

None of them would hand him a mirror, and strangely enough the one in the bathroom attached to his and Sasuke's hospital room had recently had a little accident; but he had slept all night and most of the next day, and by next evening, with darkness as a backdrop, the windowpane reflected enough for his purposes.

The seal was faded out again. He was alone in his mind. (He'd made sure. Triple-sure.) He hadn't been using chakra today. He wasn't angry. (Just exhausted.)

His eyes were blue again -- their normal shade as far as he could tell, not that he could be sure without a real mirror.

His pupils stayed cat-slices.

Wordlessly, Sasuke stalked his way around Naruto's bed, closed the blinds with a loud snap. Naruto looked down at his hands instead.

At least Sasuke didn't... well. There was a reason Naruto had waited until Sakura left the room before he dragged himself to the edge of his bed to check. Every time she met his eyes, she ... twitched. Sasuke at least didn't seem to notice. Or care, either or.

Sasuke was limping, his back mended but still stiff; all muscle and ligament tears were healed, though the scar tissue was still frail, but they hadn't bothered with the soreness and bruises. Likely Sasuke hadn't asked. 'A real ninja needs to know how to function through discomfort and pain', or something.

"We can turn off the ceiling light," Sasuke said. His voice was completely neutral. That was strange.

Naruto realized he'd been rubbing his eyes again and dropped his hand. He swung his legs back on his mattress, pushed himself up to press his back to the headboard. "I'm fine. It doesn't hurt."

It didn't. Just felt a little tight for a couple of seconds when lights switched on or off, which was pretty normal. The doctor had said his eyes were working fine.

He hadn't said anything about how likely the pupils were to go back to their normal shape. Whatever. Naruto wasn't blind, so it didn't matter.

Naruto was a murderer.

Naruto was a murderer who couldn't even manage to murder the right person, the evil one. He killed children.

He stared down at his hands again. Got the nail clipper. He'd already trimmed them earlier -- the claws had retracted, but his nails had still been a bit too pointy.

They still were. Clip, clip. Ow. Bit too short there; it stung. He kept going on to the other nails, painstakingly.

"You've got debriefing in twenty-five minutes," Sasuke said, not really looking at him.

Naruto grunted an acknowledgement. It was something they both knew.

Seemed like Sasuke wanted him to talk. Naruto didn't want to. He'd kind of assumed Sasuke didn't want to talk either; he hadn't said a word since Naruto woke up, probably longer than that.

Itachi. Of course. Naruto remembered the man being there, and he should have reacted more because he hated Itachi on principle, but none of his reasons why were as immediate as Gaara's limp body thrown over a big blue shoulder all casually.

Naruto wanted... he didn't know. To ask Sasuke if he was okay. (Sasuke wasn't.) Ask what had happened (while Naruto was busy going crazy, trying to cancel his innocent-murder with an evil-person-murder, as if two wrongs had ever made a right), ask if there was anything Naruto could do, maybe. (Sasuke would say no, and then Naruto would sit on him and make him... and say... and say...)

Naruto was a murderer of children.

"Fucking stop it with that nail clipper!"

Naruto blinked as Sasuke backhanded it out of his hand. He was standing by Naruto's bed now, looming. Naruto wasn't sure where the anger was coming from.

Sasuke probably expected a 'what did you do that for' but it was pretty obvious why. Naruto looked away. "I don't want to fight."

"I don't give a _shit_ what you want! You're getting on my nerves."

He felt a twinge of -- anger? Offense? It reminded him a little of forbidding Sasuke to challenge him because if Sasuke tried, Naruto would hurt him for real. No play-fighting, no equal grounds. Just 'how dare you, bitch.' He squeezed his eyes closed and turned his head away, stuffing the feeling down.

There was silence for a little while, Sasuke's stare heavy.

"Just -- be normal already. I--"

He turned his back then, shoulders just a little hunched. Naruto could almost hear the words he'd wanted to say. _'I_ _ **need**_ _you to be normal.'_

"...Sorry." He rubbed his eyes again. They burned. The light maybe. Yeah.

Shit.

"Sorry."

"Shut up," Sasuke replied, back still turned. Now he sounded exhausted.

Naruto made a little noise of acknowledgement, because Sasuke didn't really want him to shut up, there were just things he didn't want to hear.

Just seemed like anything he could have said fell into that category, so never mind.

"Man, you look like somebody just died!"

Naruto's head jerked up. There was a guy in the doorway, sitting in a wheelchair. Dark skin, moss-green hair. Naruto stared at him for a couple of seconds before he remembered where he knew him from. Right -- one of the members of the Grass Country summoner team. The guy was grinning wide, staring straight at Naruto with his weird yellow eyes.

He didn't have fangs, but it still felt like his grin was full of them. Naruto couldn't even pretend it was a friendly expression if he tried.

"Kon. What the hell are you doing here?" Sasuke asked, puzzled, kind of wary.

"Oh, I was just wheeling by. Lots of time to do that now, between visits. What with, you know, only having one teammate left to visit me anyway."

Rage thrummed under each flippant word. It took Naruto a moment to really understand the meaning.

"... One of your teammates...?"

"The other guy didn't make it," Sasuke said, tone clipped. Naruto stared at his profile, but Sasuke refused to turn and look at him. If he knew that, why hadn't he told Naruto so?

... Then again, when? Naruto hadn't really had a discussion with anyone since the moment he awoke, apart from the doctor coming to check on him.

So the big guy was dead. The one who'd brushed against him mid-battle, and Naruto had woken up to Sakura's blood in his mouth and a kid pinned to the ground like a butterfly. "Ah. I'm sorry," he said dutifully, by rote. He didn't know what to feel. It... kind of sucked? But if the guy hadn't done that to Naruto in the first place then nothing would have --

"You killed him, you know."

Naruto stared at him blankly. His "I...What?" was drowned by Sasuke's "What the _fuck_? No he didn't."

"He kind of did, too."

Sasuke moved closer to the wheelchair, eyes narrow and jaw clenched. "Are you sure you should be out of your room? You're confused. Take any drugs today?"

"Not at all." The green-haired boy grinned again, though it was all in the teeth, nothing in the eyes. He looked at Naruto again. "No, see, you aimed for me."

He tugged open his shirt. His whole chest was encased in bandages, but the edges of raw, ugly scars stretched up to his collarbone and down over his hip, and that was a pretty clear preview of what else was hidden under there, how deep it must have gone.

"Tried to kill me -- slash, show me your guts. Damn near succeeded. Maneki drained himself to save me, and then he didn't have enough juice left to save himself."

Naruto realized he could remember it, with that face in front of him and those words in his ear. Blood, exposed ribs shining ivory in the middle of flayed flesh. So fun, and just what the stupid monkey deserved, for daring to attempt to bind him. Bile rose in his throat.

"He was unlucky," Sasuke retorted in a clipped tone. "That can happen to anyone."

Kon's golden eyes flashed, his handsome face going ugly with raw hate. "Not to Maneki it can't."

Suddenly Sasuke's back was blocking Naruto's whole field of vision. "You attacked us first," he said. "None of you can bitch about the consequences."

Kon moved his wheelchair inside the room and to the side so he could meet Naruto's eyes again, and let out a short, barking laugh. "Yeah? Ask me if I give a fuck."

"Your teammate died on you because we were _ambushed_ while we were _out of chakra, injured and outnumbered_. Why don't you go after the guys who ambushed us when we were escaping -- the ones who _actually killed him_?" 

"We shouldn't have lost to them, we shouldn't have been running away in the first place! And now _Maneki is dead_ ," he snarled to Naruto, not even bothering to acknowledge Sasuke anymore. "He was mine and he's dead. Trying to protect us from a monster. I'm not going to let that go."

Sasuke's hands landed on the arms of the wheelchair with jarring force, and he jerked it around to force the boy to face him.

"You think going after Naruto for revenge will change anything? You think -- what, that he'll be _less dead_ then?"

... Sounded almost like he was trying to warn Kon that revenge wouldn't bring him anything good. It was almost funny how ironic that was, coming out of Sasuke's mouth. Naruto chuckled, he couldn't help it.

"You're laughing, you fucking monster," said Kon in disbelief, and his voice came out mingled with hate and something that was almost like admiration.

"You're really messed up, you know," Naruto said, before he could hold the words back. He should have explained he hadn't been laughing at Kon's pain or his desire for revenge, but it had slipped out before the automatic 'sorry'.

"Funny, I never used to be messed up before my teammate died on me."

His teammate. The brief moment of off-beat, twisted amusement died right there. What would it be like to lose one of his teammates? He couldn't get angry at that guy for lashing out, he couldn't say either 'I didn't do it' or 'I'm sorry'.

It was okay if that guy accused him of murder. One more, one less...

"If you start anything now," Sasuke said, "you'll drag your last teammate into it as well. You okay with getting her killed too?"

Kon chuckled again, though the sneer on his lips made it come out weird. "Careful now, that sounds almost like you're threatening her or something."

"You go for my teammate and I'll go for yours," Sasuke hissed back, all uncaring concealment gone. Fine tremors were running up his arms, tendons jutting out, fingers clenched white-knuckled.

Naruto swallowed. It hurt to hear the anger bare in Sasuke's voice for all to notice. Something that shouldn't have been shown, something that he wouldn't have shown if Itachi wasn't... wasn't so close and making everything so blown-open and raw. Any other time Sasuke would have shown an enemy nothing but that smooth mask of cold contempt, and Naruto hated it.

He snatched Sasuke's sleeve. Opened his mouth, to tell him to stand back, to stop shielding Naruto when he was hurting too. It was okay. He didn't care if Kon threw insults and threats at his face. He should have cared but he couldn't even really feel it, it was too much.

"Yeah, that's not something that will ever happen," Kon said, before he could speak. He was looking at Sasuke now, and he was smiling, satisfied. Playful. Cruel. A Kyuubi-face. "Lie about it as much as you want, but you? You're _honorable_." He said it like an insult, a fatal flaw. "Cold blood? You couldn't." 

"Maybe he couldn't," Sakura said in something that was almost a conversational tone. She stopped in the doorway, feet set apart solid and ready. "But _I_ could. And I wouldn't come from the front."

Sakura's left arm was in a cast. They'd had to break and set it again. The cast didn't make her total absence of expression and the coldness of her eyes less convincing.

It made Naruto sick to see her like that. It was all wrong. She was supposed to rage and huff for silly things and then go right back to laughing, and to be a bit smug and to tease, and -- and to just be _Sakura-chan_. She wasn't supposed to act cold-blooded.

"You gave your message. Now leave."

She stepped back to free the way. Kon gave her a long weighing look, and then snorted. "Whatever, I'm done here." He slowly went, pushing himself back in the corridor. Sakura stepped in the room with her face still frozen, and closed the door with carefully controlled precision.

Naruto wished she would have slammed it.

He leaned back against the headboard, gazing down as Sasuke turned on his heel and stalked to the window. The blinds were still down; Naruto didn't know what he was looking at. He didn't say anything about it. He didn't want to look at anyone else either.

The thing was, he couldn't even manage to mind that Kon considered him a murderer. After what Naruto had allowed to be done to that kid, that was only what he deserved.

Sakura put down a package she'd been carrying in the crook of her cast on the table, spent a few seconds fussing with it. "Ino left food for us at the nurse station."

"Ino?" Sasuke asked reluctantly. "I didn't know she was around."

Sakura shrugged, like she hadn't known either, like she didn't really care. Her face was still disturbingly blank. Naruto's eyes slid away.

Sakura had been called out earlier to pick up the care package, but that wasn't the reason she had gone at all; she'd have asked Kakashi to get it if that was all. But now Naruto couldn't make himself ask. The fact that she hadn't told him what she'd found out on her own, straight away... It said everything.

"I don't get it," he commented. "Sasuke tried to save them, but..."

Sasuke snorted quietly, arms crossed, face still turned toward the blank window. "Yeah. They'll never forgive me for that."

The conversation died again. He'd hoped Sakura would pick it up and go with it, but she kept fiddling with the little boxes inside Ino's package, lining them up by length and then by width or some other criteria he didn't get.

"He's still in the critical ward," she said, staring down at the boxes. "Status unchanged. That's all I could find out."

Status unchanged meant still dying, just apparently taking his time about it.

Naruto wanted to think it meant the little redhead was going to beat the odds and survive, but the doctor's face when he asked how likely that was...

He hadn't asked again after that.

"...Thanks, Sakura-chan."

Kakashi was going to be there any minute to escort him to the debriefing, so he slipped off his bed and went to splash some water on his face.

+

The medic-nin had tried to chase Sasuke out of the room at first, but Sakura shrugged and said she didn't mind, so Sasuke spent a half-hour watching an old guy lift his teammate's shirt and feel up her stomach and belly. At some point he even pressed a palm down her shorts, against her pubis.

The guy was from Konoha, cleared by Tsunade, so he had some idea of the state of Sakura's health, the whole situation. About the fetus.

The baby.

_'The rumors were wrong. It isn't Naruto-kun's. It's yours.'_

He knew why his brother believed it. Because he assumed Sasuke had reason to believe it, from the way he'd thrown himself on Sakura to shield her.

Sasuke didn't believe. He didn't have enough luck to dare.

He just... hoped.

But hope was too nice a word, too soft. Yearning, maybe. Craving. It was the kind of wanting that hurt.

He shook his head, closed his eyes for a few long seconds, opened them to stare at Sakura so his mind wouldn't drift again. She was getting dressed with quick, short gestures, jaw twitching every time the cast on her arm got in her way. Her eyes were still flat, still walled off.

 _'Charge'_ , he'd told her, and she'd attacked Kisame, outclassed as she was.

"So?" she said, not looking at the old medic-nin.

The man was frowning, looking at his chart. Not a deep frown, but not an optimal expression either. Sasuke fisted his hands deep in his pockets.

"The fetus is alive and healthy enough for now, but there is no telling whether it was altered and how." A short, irritated sigh. "Just the sort of problems we were trying to prevent in the first place... At any rate, whatever happened, it's too late to fix it. Just mind you don't make it worse. No more of that chakra. You can control the input until the seal is fixed, right?"

She gave a terse nod, rolling the waistband of her shorts back up one-handed. Sasuke stepped up to her and tugged her tangled t-shirt down, so it would cover her hip under the cracked arm where she couldn't reach easy.

(Sakura could stop herself from taking in more Kyuubi chakra, as long as Naruto didn't use any around her -- he'd flood her no matter what she tried -- but somehow Sasuke didn't think that was going to be a problem.)

"The bone?" she asked.

"It's not good for your calcium levels if I speed it up any more. Double your daily supplements and come back in a week."

"Alright." A nod. A perfunctory "Thank you." She turned to leave. Sasuke followed.

Down the corridor, and to the staircase. This floor had been blocked for the second test's casualties, preventing anyone but teammates and teachers to come in, but nothing stopped them from leaving. Naruto would be in debriefing for another forty-five minutes at the very least.

She went. Kakashi was with Naruto, so he followed. Out in the street, and up the hill, and up that cliff path they'd raced down, back from the first test, a few centuries ago. White and purple flowers dancing in the wind, spilling all over the rocks, the sea unfurling blue-green as far as the eye could see.

He could see rage in every line of her body, the set of her shoulders, how straight and proud her spine was. He'd never seen it from the outside, but it was familiar anyway.

She stopped at a little bend in the path, the jutting rocks hiding them from view. She turned to face the sea.

Picked up a loose rock, and hurled it as far as it would go. Sasuke didn't track its fall. She was already bending down to pick up another.

He stood on the path and watched her throw rock after rock. At some point she started to grunt with the effort, a quiet little noise with each throw that grew progressively louder; after that, it was her lip, curling up from a pressed-down line into a snarl.

" _Shit_."

Throw. She was a little unbalanced by the cast, movements too wide and not efficient enough, but it wasn't like she was bothering to aim anyway.

She was so angry. He had nothing against that fact, didn't begrudge her it; it was just strange, that rage, the depth of it.

Sasuke wasn't angry. He'd tried to be, at Naruto for being so listless, at Sakura for leaving them alone together, at Kakashi because he was there and then because he wasn't, at Kon.

He wasn't angry. He wished he was.

It would have been easier to handle than the nameless thing churning in his guts, the terrifying thing he'd been trying to ignore ever since the jounin-sensei arrived on the battlefield and carried them back out.

Sakura's anger took up all the space, and he couldn't hold onto his own anymore. Couldn't fan it huge and roaring until he could pretend anger was the only thing he felt, until he was deaf to the things it covered up.

"Did you see him?" asked Sakura. She stared at the horizon. Her face was still hard, but there was a pinched, brittle look at the corner of her eyes which told him that she didn't want to cry, that she might anyway.

She meant Naruto, of course, and of course Sasuke had seen him, and it made him sick with frustration and denial, he couldn't stand it. Naruto wasn't allowed to be broken.

"He'll be better when he has things to do," he said, parroting Kakashi and not believing it any more now that he was the one saying it. "He's had nothing to do but brood. He needs to move around."

Sakura didn't even look like she was paying attention. It was a little strange not to have her hanging on his every word.

"If I'd been stronger," she said.

He fell silent. He knew where this one went.

"If I'd been faster -- known more jutsu..."

She lifted her chin, eyes glittering with rage and tears.

"If I wasn't so weak, wasn't a _toy_ , wasn't someone you can _ignore_!"

She was screaming now, until her voice went raw.

"I will never freeze up again. I will never be too slow or weak again. _I will never be ignored again!_ Never, never, NEVER!" 

Sasuke watched her, and... He didn't know. He didn't know what he felt there. Something soft, that ached a little. He stepped closer, shoulder to shoulder. Standing with her. He thought he could do that from now on. He thought it would be fine by him.

She trembled with a swallowed sob, chin still up, eyes glittering with more than anger now. He was the one who touched her first, his hand on her back. She turned in his arms and burrowed there. He held on.

He could understand that feeling, that need to make oneself into someone who could never be dismissed.

He caught the word emerging, floating there, in a corner of his mind. _'My wife.'_ He weighed the word, the notion.

Alright. Yes.

Despite the still-unnamed thing curling in the pit of his stomach he didn't think he had ever thought so clearly. He tilted his head, rested his cheek against her hair as she fought not to cry, as a few hot tears slipped through anyway. He could see hardy little flowers, and torn rocks, and the sea.

The thing was, when he stopped lying, stopped hiding...

He already knew how it would all untangle, once he grabbed the end of the string and started following it. When he'd faced his brother, when Itachi had moved to destroy the pipeline -- to kill Sakura -- he'd already chosen. He'd chosen again when he thought he wouldn't mind if Naruto hated him forever for trading him for Gaara. It was just a matter of allowing it all to unravel, now, to make himself push away the last of the fear and admit it.

He already knew.

His brother. His revenge. His family, waiting, betrayed and ended, waiting for him to even the score, to make sure their murderer didn't get away with it. All that he owed his parents.

All that he owed his brother.

His... maybe-child. Maybe Naruto's child.

His wife. His future children -- the ones that might come after this first one. The ones he'd have with her, and the one they'd have with Naruto, and.

Their future children.

He closed his eyes, turned his face into Sakura's neck.

His brother.

_'You and I will always be brothers. I will always be there for you, even if only as an obstacle for you to overcome.'_

_'Even if you hate me. That's what big brothers are for.'_

"We will always be brothers..."

"--Sasuke-kun?"

She pulled back a little bit, blinked at him with eyes reddened but stubbornly not crying. His whisper had been too quiet; she hadn't caught the words. Sasuke shook his head slowly, unwound his arms until only their fingers were touching.

"Come on. Something I've got to tell the two of you."

He led her down the path, fingers interlaced with hers in a white-knuckled tangle.

+

On the way to Naruto's hospital room they saw the kunoichi, the one who summoned wolves, and Sakura thought, _'she's faster than me but she'll be expecting posturing and glaring first,'_ and started calculating angles to box her in. She could see it unfolding in her head, keep walking like she didn't care and at the last second when they passed each other she would slip her hand free from Sasuke's and lash out, just one strike. She could break boulders. A ribcage should be fine.

Zenko didn't say a thing, barely looked at them, just one quick glance and then nothing. They crossed paths and kept going, ignoring each other.

Sakura still wanted to double back and strike. From the front, from behind -- whatever.

Kon blamed Naruto for his teammate, but she blamed them for Naruto, and when it came down to it she didn't _care_ about how unfair that blaming game was, how unbalanced the losses were, it was sad and it sucked that Maneki had died and she would kill them if they came near Naruto again, if they tried to make it one inch worse for him.

She couldn't stand -- Naruto, broken, she couldn't stand that.

Sasuke's fingers were clenched tight in between hers. She wondered if he could tell what she'd just planned -- if maybe he'd been about to hold her back. The flash of resentment surprised her a little bit, and then on second thought didn't.

She was furious at the world for hurting Naruto, but underneath that she was also furious at Sasuke. When she let herself, she could still feel his body shuddering on hers as a blade stabbed through.

But she couldn't be angry at Sasuke for protecting (the baby) her, so she was trying to push it out of her mind. Otherwise she would punch him in the face and yell _, 'what were you_ thinking _, how could you do that to me'_. She knew she'd have nightmares where he died right on top of her, trapping her powerless, suffocating her under the weight of his corpse.

Sasuke's hand in hers, not letting go. It would have made her giddy just two days ago.

She loved Sasuke same as always -- she wouldn't have gone half-crazy with hate for Itachi and fear for him if she didn't -- but now he was injury-free and if there hadn't been Naruto to worry about she wouldn't have wanted to see his face very much right at the moment.

She gave his hand a last squeeze and slipped her fingers free. They were coming up to their bedroom, and she could see Kakashi-sensei in the corridor, leaning against the wall that faced the door. A Konoha ANBU with short dark hair and a dog-like mask stood beside him, discussing she didn't know what. She'd be curious about it later, now all she cared about was that Kakashi wouldn't have been here if the debriefing wasn't over.

"He's inside?" Sasuke asked. He glanced at her. "I'll be along in a minute."

She nodded an acknowledgement and pushed the door open, a little puzzled. Whatever it was Sasuke wanted to tell them, maybe he wanted to tell Kakashi first...

She forgot in the next second. Naruto was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring down at a change of clothes he'd probably been in the middle of packing. On second look it wasn't really a change of clothes, because he'd been shirtless during the whole battle; it was just underwear, a thigh holster, and freshly washed, knee-torn pants. She could still see scorch marks and faint bloodstains here and there.

She didn't know what to say to him. She knew what she wanted to say, but ' _I'll kill anyone who puts that look on your face'_ would be the opposite of helpful, especially with how much she meant it right now.

"Hey, Sakura-chan."

He met her eyes, gave her a tired half-smile, and just like that, her anger flagged.

"Hey," she replied quietly.

She walked around the bed, took the pants from him. "I don't think they can still be rescued, you know. Did you empty the pockets?" She draped them over her cast and checked quickly, feeling through the cloth. Nothing to fish out. And there was the wastebasket.

Now the bed had a free spot for her to sit on.

"You okay?"

She stared at him, and laughed a little, and it hurt in her throat. Why was he the one asking her that? How silly was it?

"... Sakura-chan?"

"I'm fine. How --" It was hard to ask that directly. Maybe because Naruto didn't like worrying her, or looking weak, and he didn't react well to her showing she had noticed. "How are you?"

He dredged up a smile. She could tell he was about to wave off her concern and try to pretend he was just fine, and she couldn't keep her expression from shifting to offended. Naruto stared at her for a second longer and broke eye contact, the smile turning even more awkward.

"Eh. Been better. ... Sorry."

She attempted to smile back. "Sorry for what, you big dummy?"

Naruto gave a self-deprecating shrug. "Making you worry."

"I'd rather be worried than lied to."

She froze with the words barely out of her mouth. She hadn't meant to _say_ that, hadn't meant to snap it almost, and now he stared at her with shocked blue eyes, and the wrong fox-pupils didn't divert from the hurt in them.

"No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I just... Naruto, I _notice_ when you're not alright. Okay? And -- and I always want to help, but I can't help if you won't let me." Quietly, she added, "And that hurts a bit."

"Aw, shit." Naruto rubbed a hand over his face, his eyes.

Sakura bit her lip and looked down at her hands, tangled together on her lap. Like Naruto didn't feel bad enough, she had to bring that up.

"To be fair, Sakura, you do the same thing," Sasuke said as he pushed the door closed behind him.

Startled, she jumped, stared at him. She hadn't noticed him come in.

"I guess we don't talk much," Sasuke concluded in a quiet, thoughtful voice.

Sakura didn't expect Naruto to snort out a laugh, though it wasn't a happy one, more like ironic.

"S' funny coming from you. You don't talk at all."

"I don't smile and pretend it's all peachy either."

Naruto paused. "Yeah, that you _really_ don't." 

It didn't have much of the bite it should have had; it didn't end in a long tirade on how Sasuke was always pissy even when he was fine, and if they had to pretend, it was better to pretend to be happy than pretend to hate the world because he was scared a smile would split his face in two. Still, Sakura felt the grip over her guts unclench slightly. He'd tried to banter. He was getting better. (Or better at putting up a front. But it was good that he was starting to care enough to try to hide. Wasn't it?)

The half-smile on Naruto's face fell as he looked back at Sakura. She tried not to flinch as she noticed his pupils again.

"I'm sorry, Sakura-chan. It's not like -- I just -- I hate it when you're worried, and if you _can't_ do anything then I don't want to bring it up anyway. I'd rather you were happy."

She stared at him for a second, and then she extended her arm, bumped her fist against his chin like a very slow-motion sucker punch. She wanted to be angry at him. At any other time she might have been, because he just didn't _get_ it. She might have tried to explain, _'I'd rather be sad with you than happy on my own,'_ but she was sure Naruto would stare at her in utter bafflement, because in his stupidly self-sacrificial brain it likely wouldn't make sense. But when she saw him exhausted and hurt, trying to stuff it all down for their sake, she couldn't even really feel her own frustration.

"I really don't want to talk right now," Naruto said quietly.

A pause, as they all looked down at the floor. Sakura sneaked a glance at Sasuke. She was all out of ideas.

He took a step toward the twin beds, but before that he breathed in, deep, bracingly. She blinked. Sasuke's body language was usually subtle, but as she watched him from the corner of her eye, it was almost blatant, and not just because she'd gotten used to read him. The tense shoulders, the slightly bowed head -- anyone could have seen it. He stepped between the beds and instead of joining them on Naruto's he sat on his own, with the aisle between them, and that was pretty usual for him but...

She slipped Naruto a quick glance. He was frowning at Sasuke, puzzled.

"I..."

Sasuke paused there, as if he couldn't find his words. Sakura turned in her seat so she would face him more, though the aisle was big enough that he was out of arm's reach.

"Sasuke-kun?"

"You don't have to talk," he said abruptly to Naruto. His hands were gripping the edge of the mattress. "It's more of an announcement. Not a discussion." A pause. A rasp, sudden, shockingly raw, "It's not up for discussion."

Naruto straightened up, dead serious.

"It's about Itachi, isn't it," he said, not even like a question.

Sasuke didn't answer, but then again he didn't need to.

She'd seen Itachi for longer than Sasuke had -- oh, almost a whole minute longer! -- and he and his brother hadn't even talked -- or had they? She thought she remembered Itachi's voice, as Sasuke's body trapped her on the ground, but she'd heard it all garbled, deafened by terror. She'd expected Sasuke to hurt for a good long while afterwards, of course, the wound that the massacre of his family had left opened again, but she hadn't really... it had barely been thirty seconds at most, that couldn't be enough for more than a reminder, a refresher course on why Itachi was evil and a monster and needed to die. Not enough for a brand-new trauma.

This, she could tell, this would be huge.

"You remember the day I told you he was my kill?"

Naruto flinched, a horrible grimace twisting his face with pain. "The day I ate that guy?" he said, voice shaking. Sakura flinched. "Yeah, weird enough I remember, fuck you!"

Sasuke shook his head no, cut him off with a hard gesture of his hand. "Shut up! It's not -- _let me finish_."

Bile rose in her throat at the memory of that day, maybe two, three years ago -- a genjutsu-type missing-nin, the mission supposedly B-rank on paper but so very much not in real life. He'd made Naruto believe they were all dead, and it had... done things to -- Naruto was exaggerating, he hadn't _eaten_ the man -- just. _Bitten_. (A lot.) She tried to stuff the memory away, scowled at Sasuke for bringing it up when the thing with Kyuubi was still so recent.

She could probably blame that day on Kyuubi as well. Back then, when she still didn't know, her only choice had been to push it all on the genjutsu user and weird aftereffects and try to forget it, because she'd known it wasn't Naruto, just couldn't be. Turned out she was right, but that didn't make it any less horrifying. At least the genjutsu user was long dead. Kyuubi wasn't.

Sasuke raked his hand through his hair, and then looked up, and Sakura's gut tightened painfully, her protective anger forgotten. Oh god, those eyes. Oh, hell.

"I changed my mind."

Naruto seemed struck as dumb as she was.

"--What?"

Sasuke's eyes. All that pain.

All that grief.

"I change my mind. He's -- I still want to kill him. It's still my duty. It's still my --"

"Sasuke--"

"Shut up and _listen_ , it's not a discussion. He's still my brother, but if you get the chance -- don't stop on my account."

She was off the bed now, standing before him with her hand clenched on his forearm. "Sasuke!"

He didn't even seem to notice her leaning in his space, or her tight hold on his arm. "I _want_ to kill him, but we need him dead more. Do you get it? We _need_ him dead, he needs to be dead, right now, he'll kill the baby, he'll kill you both and I can't -- _I can't._ "

"Sasuke-kun!"

"I don't _care_ who kills him anymore, _he just needs to be dead!_ " 

Naruto slid off his bed, caught Sasuke's shoulder and yanked him up on his feet, shaking and growling as he pressed a hand to Sasuke's mouth. "Enough, that's enough, I get it. I will. Promise."

"He needs to be dead," Sasuke repeated, dislodging Naruto's hand with a quick shake of his head. "He needs to be dead more than I need to kill him."

Sakura hadn't cried earlier but she felt tears rise again and this time she didn't stop them.

"Oh," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

Sasuke let out a bark of crazy-edged laughter and she winced. "What the fuck for, isn't that what you wanted, isn't that what everyone wanted--"

"You still love him," she said.

Sasuke was silent for so long that she thought he wouldn't answer, that he _couldn't_ answer -- that he would just pretend she hadn't said it. She wished she hadn't, but it was so horribly true.

"I don't know how to stop," he said, very quietly.

Naruto choked on something that couldn't decide between a growl and a wounded whimper and yanked him into a tight, almost brutal hug.

Tears rolled hot and wet down her face, soaking into the back of Sasuke's shirt. God but she was so tired of it all. Being attacked and hurt, and watching over children she wasn't good enough to heal, and fighting people she wasn't good enough to fight, and failing to protect, and having her life saved almost at the cost of someone else's, and Naruto _breaking_ , and _Sasuke_ breaking --

She couldn't break as well, she needed to be strong for them. She had to take up the slack for once and be the rock for them to lean on.

She failed. She cried and cried, and the guilt from setting them off only made it all worse. She could feel them both trembling, entangled as the three of them were. She could hear them gasping for air in between not-silent-enough sobs. It was horrible.

People would probably have wise things to say about crying it out -- that it was good for them, that they couldn't let it all fester, that they needed to air it out at some point, but those people didn't know a thing. It just felt like another failure, it wasn't a relief at all. It was just exhausting.

At some point they stopped, gradually, mostly because their bodies didn't want to keep going. They broke apart, almost by accident, as they sank to the floor and sat, Sasuke slumped against the side of his bed and Naruto in the corner. Sakura leaned her shoulder against the side of the other bed. From the corner of her eye she saw them gazing away, anywhere but toward each other. It looked like defeat.

"... Shit." Sasuke rubbed his palm across his face. "I didn't plan to make this into such a circus. A quick announcement..."

Naruto snorted halfheartedly. "Yeah, not happening."

The hospital beds were so high it made like a little hiding place between them. Standing she couldn't have reached from one mattress to the next with her arm, but three pairs of legs in there, that should have been another story. But both of her teammates had their legs drawn up, almost to their chest, so that no one accidentally touched.

"So." Sakura bowed her head for a second, looking for inspiration. All she saw was her cast, resting across her stomach. "We need a plan."

"For?"

She had no idea. She bit her lip. "... Things."

"Training," Sasuke said.

"Yeah. We need to be able to defend ourselves. That -- the way they just..." Naruto gave a disgusted growl. "We could be stronger. We should have been."

Sakura nodded slowly. He was right. For so long they had cruised along, because the Council didn't want a team with a traitor and a demon to progress too fast, because if they wanted to build good will they couldn't complain that they didn't get the most dangerous missions possible anymore, because Kakashi wasn't allowed to teach Sasuke, because, because -- it all seemed like silly excuses now. What the hell had they been doing for so long, stuck in that holding pattern, that limbo?

"Training has to become a priority. We'll have to limit the number of missions we take, just go for the ones that offer better fights and drop the rest."

"Money?" Sakura pointed out.

"We've got savings. There's banks. At worst we'll borrow from them. Make it up later."

Naruto nodded vaguely; Sakura waited for him to go 'hah' because that was a reversal of their old argument, Sasuke now espousing Naruto's view on money that he had rejected back then, but he didn't.

Silence again.

"It's because of the baby, right?"

Sakura and Sasuke blinked at Naruto.

"You and Itachi. You and -- you and the baby."

Sakura opened her mouth to protest Naruto's words, but then she realized she couldn't. The baby made them stop being just a team, something Sasuke could dismiss. It made them a family. She clenched her fingers into a fist, out of Sasuke's line of sight.

He didn't say anything, for a second, two, ten.

"...I guess."

"Get married," Naruto said, staring ahead with grim stubbornness. "Soon. Before shit happens. 'Cause afterwards..."

Sakura bit her lip. The marriage -- oh, they'd planned it, had even mentioned it to her parents. But it had always seemed to belong to 'later', a nebulous and faraway time. Later, we'll marry, and there will be the baby, and it was like something a little out of time, out of danger. It wasn't. They weren't.

"What if," she whispered. "What if you're her father, Naruto?"

She saw them both flinch. "We've talked about that before!" Naruto retorted, meeting her eyes this time around. "It doesn't matter, okay? It's -- he or she -- she'll be ours anyway. We've talked about that."

"Not a lot."

"It was enough! We understood each other, right? Right, Sasuke?"

Sasuke was watching her, utterly unreadable. "Have you changed your mind?" he asked. His voice was as blank as his face.

"No," Sakura whispered. "I want to be your wife. But I want to be Naruto's wife too."

She really did.

Uchiha Sakura... Uzumaki Sakura. It didn't sound half-bad either.

"... And it's not fair to make you marry me when I could be having his child -- when you could -- when you could have your children with someone else."

She saw them both stiffen. Naruto's hand reached for hers, squeezed. She squeezed back, even though he was this close to giving her a second cast to balance out the first. He'd be a great husband -- in a totally different way from Sasuke, but a great husband, fun and loving and caring...

"You want family, Sasuke. You want lots of them, and this one might not even be yours, and _I_ want to train and fight with the both of you, this child might be an orphan by next year because I won't let the two of you fight alone -- who knows when there will be time to have more, and there's so many clans who would be glad to --"

" _Shut up_."

"--I don't want that, I don't want to see you marry anyone else but--"

"I don't want anyone else to be the mother of my children!"

Oh.

She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. Naruto's thumb was rubbing her knuckles back and forth, back and forth.

"We'll -- I don't know." Sasuke raked his hand through his hair, waved it in a meaningless gesture, let it flop back down. "Teach you kagebunshin so you can have several pairs of twins at the same time. Clone them in a lab. I don't know. I don't care. Until Naruto somehow turns himself into a real, functional woman and lets me knock him up, you're the only one. Shut up."

"Oi!"

Naruto kicked out, his leg crossing the empty space between the two of them like they hadn't spent the last, oh, ten minutes, pretending it was the Great Suna Canyon. Sasuke kicked back. Kick, kick, push and kick, legs tangling together as they squabbled like children, like always, and she couldn't help but laugh, even though she still wanted to cry.

God help her but she wanted them both. Just like that, being competitive and ridiculous and completely absorbed in each other.

She turned her cracked arm outward, fingers uncurling toward Sasuke's side. He paused, looked at her. She waited, apologies in her eyes, hand offered.

Naruto wriggled his foot free from where Sasuke's knee pinned it and sneaked in a stealth kick, digging his toes in Sasuke's thigh. Sasuke turned back to him like a striking snake, eyes narrowed in challenge, and slipped his legs past Naruto's guard to pin both of Naruto's legs back down.

But even as he proved his mastery of techniques and holds on Naruto, he still reached back for her hand.

She didn't think she would ever be able to explain to any outsider how and why the sight of the both of them so absorbed in trying to outdo each other in utter _stupid_ managed to put such a fond smile on her face.

They weren't right yet, playing it up for an audience of two, attempting to convince themselves along with each other and her, attempting not to notice all those things that still waited nearby, crowding them. Their mock-competition stopped too soon, not enough insults and offense. But at the same time...

At the same time, when they stopped fighting their legs were so entangled it would be a miracle if they could get up in time to defend from an attack. Sakura shifted her weight on her folded legs, set her feet against the linoleum, so that _she_ could.

Next time she'd protect them. She really would.


	10. Interlude:  Beach Party  (Ino)

The hospital was letting them go. It was a happy occasion. Yet when Ino saw them walk into the hospital lobby the gloom almost choked her.

There was something distant and harsh in the tilt of Sakura's chin, watchful. Something brittle in Naruto's eyes. Sasuke... harder to read, but not by much. Their eyes were a little puffy.

They walked well inside each other's personal space, reverse-triangle formation like they vaguely expected an attack. In the middle, a step back, in the safest position, was Naruto. Ino would have expected Sakura; instead, despite her arm in a cast from hand to elbow, she took the wide-open side, and left the wall to Sasuke. Kakashi-sensei was trailing behind them and kept throwing them little glances like he didn't know by which end to handle them, and, well, she was pretty sure he didn't.

When they were about to reach her, Ino called "Hey guys!" with a grin, and pretended she hadn't noticed. Sakura and Naruto smiled back, but it was the same mechanical response, the same vague 'oh, hell, she's going to be _upbeat_ at us.'

She was glad she'd been warned about Naruto's eyes, because god that was weird. But Kiba's pupils were more obviously strange, with their total lack of visible irises; unless you were close you had to be looking for it to notice the shape of Naruto's.

"Hi, Ino."

"Hiya! So you're all free to go?" she asked, falling into step with Sakura.

"Yeah."

Gee, how chatty. It felt a little strange when she realized she was being stonewalled by Sakura -- not even actively blocked out, just... Being kept at bay, emotionally speaking, like she was a stranger, an acquaintance at best, not _supposed_ to be privy to the personal stuff. 

She had known it happened sometimes when your friends hooked up, but for a second she was jealous that Naruto and Sasuke had taken her best friend away.

"Got anything planned?"

The three of them exchanged a quick look, like they hadn't even thought that far, but the same thing came from Sasuke and Sakura's mouths anyway.

"Training."

"Training, I suppose."

Naruto blinked slowly and then nodded. "Yeah, yeah."

"Actually," Kakashi said, calm but unyielding, "I'm going to have to veto that."

Team Seven came to a halt and turned to him in blank disbelief. Kakashi stared them down, expressionless even past the mask.

"There will be no sparring and no ninjutsu practice today."

Ino would have expected Naruto to protest first, but while he looked frustrated and a little hurt, it was the flash of thwarted fury in Sakura's eyes that caught her flat-footed.

"Why the hell not?"

Kakashi's voice was low, made not to carry past the five of them, but he didn't pull his punch any more than that. "Because you're still not realizing you're off the battlefield. You're officially on leave until you can get that through your heads."

Sasuke's shoulders were stiff when he touched Sakura's arm to get her to settle down, and his voice bitter. "Are we allowed pushups?"

"Sixty minutes of exercise a day, to maintain fitness." And Kakashi had said 'sixty' because he meant 'and not one minute more.'

They'd forgotten she was there. Ino didn't really mind; it gave her the time to observe and analyze.

She knew why Kakashi was giving that order. They'd gotten hurt by a stronger enemy, but the wounds didn't matter, the rage at their own powerlessness did. If they were allowed to spar, it would get too serious and spiral out of control very quickly. Therefore, not allowed before they got their heads screwed on back straight.

As for fitness... A lot of ninjas Ino knew used excessive training as a form of self-abuse, a way to meld the society-condoned attempt to improve themselves with self-punishment for failing to measure up to impossible standards in the first place. If Sasuke's whole life wasn't an exercise in punishing himself for things that weren't his own damn fault, Ino didn't know what was, and Naruto binged on training like some did on chocolate when there was something he felt he had to master _right now_. She hadn't quite expected the same response out of Sakura; her friend had more sense than to think one manic burst of obsessive, brutal exercise would allow her to make up for years of trailing behind...

Which meant if no one did anything about their mental state before they started down that path, they'd quickly make that type of desperate session into a routine. And that kind of mindset... No.

So Ino grinned brightly, and she planted a fist on her hip, and steeled herself. "Well, good! Because I'll be damned if I came all the way to this godforsaken country and didn't get to spend a day at the beach, and you three are coming with me."

They stared at her. Over Sasuke's head, Kakashi's visible eyebrow furrowed. Do you know what you're doing? he seemed to ask. She flipped her hair. Of course she did.

"Now hurry up, hurry up! We'll miss the tide."

Ino had zero clue what on Earth the tide would do to make their beach experience all that different, and she didn't even remember whether it was currently high, low, or lopsided, but it gave her an excuse to slip her arm under Sakura's and pull her firmly toward the door.

"Ino-pig!" Sakura protested, but Ino was just glad she was using that stupid nickname again and so she only grinned harder as she dragged her out of the hospital.

Sasuke and Naruto trailed behind, Sasuke stalking like an angry tiger and Naruto dragging his feet. Kakashi didn't follow.

"Hey, might as well," Naruto said with a sigh as he stepped out in the street. "Hotel's gonna be too boring."

Sasuke and Sakura didn't counter that, and Ino considered it an argument won. But now she needed something else -- something more. Because on her own she wasn't going to manage to get very far.

When she caught sight of Shikamaru at the window of the big administrative building, it was an unexpected present. She waved wildly, beaming. "Oi, Shikamaru!"

He waved back somewhat, lifting a hand a few inches and no higher, taking them all in. Ino sneaked a quick meaningful look toward the members of Team Seven that she knew her teammate would catch. Shikamaru had higher clearance and knew more of the circumstances than she did; he'd get her meaning.

"We're going to the beach! Come with us."

"Some of us have jobs to do," he replied -- halfheartedly, which meant there was leeway to convince him otherwise. Ino knew all of Shika's responses by heart. This one was almost permission to bully him.

"They can spare you for a little bit," she retorted. "Just take your second lunch break or something. I'm not going back to Konoha without having spent some time at the beach!"

Shikamaru grumbled something under his breath, and Ino knew she had already won. Great! She seriously needed some support if she was going to do any good today.

Then Temari of the Sand appeared at the window beside him -- in the other angle, but the window was narrow so that wasn't exactly far away. "Oh yes, you're looking at the sky because you're so busy," she said with a healthy dose of sarcasm, and nodded her head in greeting at the little group down in the street.

Ino scowled briefly. Where did she come off manipulating Ino's teammate when Ino was already doing it? Ino didn't need help bending him to her whims.

"The beach, huh," Temari said, considering. "Alright, let's go."

"You weren't invited, you realize," Shikamaru told her, but it wasn't with any kind of seriousness, any actual rejection.

Temari smirked at him, perfectly sure of her welcome. "I'm inviting myself. Any of you mind?"

"Nah, the more the merrier," Naruto replied, though it seemed rather automatic to Ino's ears.

Shikamaru and Temari disappeared inside the building. Ino fumed in silence for a good ten seconds before telling herself that the important thing right now wasn't a stranger worming her way inside their group; the important was Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto's mental wellbeing, and if there was the slightest chance Temari would help distract them, then it was okay.

When the door opened, Ino was expecting Shikamaru and Temari, but instead it was a couple of Sand ANBU who walked out first, taking position to cover the street -- and then came out the Kazekage himself along with his sister and Ino's teammate.

"Naruto," he said quietly.

"... Hey, Gaara."

The way they looked at each other, Ino felt as if she was only privy to maybe one third of the real conversation.

Naruto managed a smile, and while it was real enough, it seemed a little pained and not enough happy and uncomplicated for Ino's peace of mind. Or Sasuke's; she could see him watching his teammate as well, his brow furrowed.

"Will the small cove by the northeast harbor work for your purposes?"

Ino blinked as Gaara addressed her, caught flatfooted. "Uhh -- I... suppose so?"

"Good," Gaara said briskly. "We will be coming as well."

"... Ah." Ino floundered for a second. "Sure! The more, the merrier and all that." Gaara only glanced at her like it hadn't been a question and he didn't have a clue why she bothered to keep talking about it.

The ANBUs zipped off without a word, and Ino grimaced faintly when she realized they would have an escort. Getting Sasuke to open up was going to be harder, not that she had ever counted on it being easy. No matter. Ino tossed her ponytail over her shoulder and started walking down the street with bold steps, pulling Sakura along. Behind her, Gaara and Shikamaru fell into step with Naruto, sandwiching him neatly.

"Hey, Uchiha," Temari said. "Nice day, huh?"

"It's going to rain."

Ino tried not to smirk.

The trip down to the cove wasn't too long, but it was singularly monosyllabic. Sakura wasn't talking much, and Sasuke wasn't talking at all. Neither Gaara nor Shikamaru seemed inclined to prod Naruto to speak, so he only exchanged a couple of platitudes with the both of them.

"Ta-dah!" Ino exclaimed when they reached the end of the winding path and got to the small cove. Cliffs blocked almost all the sides, and there were reefs in the water that meant no boat would risk it. The beach itself was unremarkable, strewn with drying seaweed and a bit steep for proper lounging. It really didn't matter right now. At least it was sunny. Sunlight was always relaxing.

"Okay! Shoes off, everyone." She took off her sandals and stepped onto the hot sand. She'd had to let Sakura's arm go, though, and her friend drifted back toward her teammates without even seeming to realize. Ino sighed. At least Temari was already undoing her ankle straps, and Shikamaru only grumbled something disparaging for appearances' sake as he bent over to do the same.

"This is such a waste of time," Sasuke growled quietly to his teammates. Sakura's eyelid twitched in shared annoyance.

Forehead-girl was supposed to be the smart one, Ino thought with frustration, so why wasn't she taking a step back from the situation and seeing what needed to be done? Argh.

"Shoes off, Sasuke-kun, or it'll be sand in your underwear," Ino sang playfully, giving Sasuke an encouraging smile.

"I'd like to see you try," he snapped.

\--ahaha. Damn it. How come her special kunoichi techniques to defuse aggressiveness never worked on him? Come to think of it, no kunoichi technique ever worked on mister Uchiha. Sakura was deluding herself, the boy was gayer than a spring festival.

Ino had a flash of inspiration. "Gaara would help me, wouldn't you?" she said, smiling conspiratorially at him.

The Kazekage arched a nonexistent eyebrow at her in a clear 'I would?' manner. Ino's smile turned more stiff. Yes, yes he would. Curse them, why were they all so socially retarded?

But before she had to make good on her threat, Naruto nudged Sasuke with his elbow and sat on the sand to take off his. "Hey, may as well." He slipped his toes in the warm sand, surprise briefly crossing his face. "... This is pretty nice, actually."

"Well, of course," Ino replied, smug. It wouldn't distract him much, but it was something. At least he didn't seem to be stewing in rage from being forbidden to train like Sasuke still was. More like... resigned.

Ino found she didn't like resigned-Naruto very much. It was like dieting-Chouji; in theory it sounded like a good idea but in practice it was just very wrong.

Temari sat on the dune; Shikamaru flopped a couple of steps away from her, reclining against a convenient rock. Gaara walked slowly down to the water, scrutinizing the small cove for who knew what.

Sakura sighed, raked a hand through her hair -- it was kind of a mess, Ino noticed -- and sat down on the spot, though it was more of a slump than anything else. Her knee bumped Naruto's; he didn't look up. Sasuke was still standing a step behind, back straight and shoulders stiff.

Keeping watch.

Kakashi was right; in their minds they were still on the battleground.

"Any ANBU in the water?" Ino asked Gaara teasingly as he came back.

"Three," Gaara replied, making her blink. She'd been joking. Somewhat. She should have guessed. Ino opened her mouth, not knowing what she would answer yet, but Gaara looked straight past her. "Nine on the cliffs. Four of yours, five of mine. Out of earshot, so long as we don't shout. You can stand down, Uchiha."

Sasuke's jaw worked, but he didn't sit down until Gaara sat too, and when he did it was with stiff unwillingness.

It made almost a circle, a misshapen one -- Sasuke some distance on her left, and then Naruto, Sakura, Shikamaru against his rock facing Ino, and next to him Temari, and Gaara. Gaara was also keeping his distances. Ino felt a little isolated. How charming. She moved uphill, a little closer to the center, crossed her legs elegantly, and leaned back on her hand.

"Let's play a game."

All of Team Seven plus Gaara gave her an incredulous look, and Temari snorted like she'd said something accidentally amusing and vaguely ridiculous.

Shikamaru arched an eyebrow at her, but it was his 'interesting opening gambit' look, and that was all the encouragement Ino needed. "Why not," he said, crossing his hands behind his head.

"I'm not really in the mood to play, Ino-pig," Sakura said, mostly so Sasuke wouldn't have to bother snapping back something far less diplomatic.

Ino's eyes hardened. "Tough luck. Because we're drowning in emo right now. Don't worry, it won't be a very fun game for anyone involved."

Sakura stiffened, and this time Ino really felt like her best friend was _seeing_ her. Ino stared back, challenging.

"The game. Share one thing you regret, and then one thing you're glad for. Anything you want. I'll start."

"No," Sasuke said, and moved to get back up.

"I'm glad you saved me again," Gaara said, looking straight at Naruto.

A strange expression passed on Sasuke's face, and then another, subtly different, slightly more like pain, when Naruto's hand reached blindly up to his wrist and tugged him back down without a word. Naruto and Gaara were still staring at each other.

Ino remembered to close her mouth. Okay, Gaara had stolen her turn, but nothing she could have said would have packed such a punch.

Naruto opened his mouth, though nothing came out for a few seconds. "Hell, it's not like I could have just _not_ \-- I -- it's not _again_ anyway, it's -- "

"You don't get to tell Gaara what he's feeling thankful for," Temari said with a total absence of inflection. "I think we should rule that out."

"Agreed," Ino said, though it bugged her a little that she hadn't thought about it first. "No commenting. Gaara, it's still your turn. One thing you regret?"

Gaara tilted his head, gazing down at the beach sightlessly. "... Only one, hm."

"Don't worry, you'll probably have several turns," Temari said with unexpected gentleness. "Just say the first one that comes to mind?"

Gaara sifted beach sand through his fingers. Bits of broken seashell stayed caught on his palm. "I regret Masago protected me before I could protect him."

Sakura bit her lip and asked softly, like she didn't really want to know but still _had_ to, "Who is Masago?"

"My secretary," Gaara said dispassionately. "Uchiha Itachi put him in a coma."

Ino winced. She leaned toward being glad that Gaara had come, but his total lack of tact was going to be a major hindrance.

Naruto looked pained. "Aw, hell, Gaara..."

"He'll wake up," Sasuke said brusquely. "I did. No lasting damage."

Gaara looked at him for a second, and then nodded slowly. "That's good. Thank you."

"...Mnh," Sasuke acknowledged with reluctance.

Ino breathed out as she realized her plan was going to work. So far there was half of the conversation she couldn't follow because she didn't know the events they were referring to, but it didn't matter; she wasn't the one who needed to go home feeling more understood.

But if she took over the following turn, then Sasuke would be next, and he wasn't ready yet. So she grinned at Shikamaru. "Your turn!"

"Aw, geez." He sighed, but didn't protest more than that. "I regret I didn't gather more info on the Akatsuki in general and that I didn't even think they might find the situation too tempting to pass up. I feel _stupid_." 

He said it like it was a capital crime. Ino chuckled weakly. She should have known he would take it so seriously. At his side, Temari looked vaguely sympathetic and totally unsurprised.

"It's not your fault!" Naruto protested. "I mean how could you guess what a bunch of crazy psychos would do?"

"Naruto... I'm a tactical analyst. It's my _job_."

"But you can't analyze if you don't have the data," Ino said. "Unless you're psychic now, too."

"But I _had_ the data. Some. Enough."

"Of course, if you're going to bring hindsight into it," Temari said, rolling her eyes. "Psychic isn't too far off."

Shikamaru arched an eyebrow at her. "What was that again about not questioning other people's answers?"

Temari snorted like his avoidance had won her the argument. Ino scowled a bit. She would have argued back that clearly it counted only for the 'grateful' part and completely sidetracked everyone. The revelation irritated her; she couldn't entirely keep it out of her voice. "What do you feel grateful for?"

Shikamaru gave her a strange, questioning look, but took over again without comment. "I'm grateful you lot didn't die... Because it would have been an inter-village political mess to sort out."

"Hey," Naruto protested, kicking sand at Shikamaru's leg. Shikamaru didn't even bother moving to dodge it.

"You skipped me," Temari drawled. "That better not become a habit. Anyway... I regret I couldn't keep Kankuro from landing in the hospital and Gaara from getting grabbed by psychos. He could have died and if he hasn't it's no thanks to me."

Her gaze was frank, sober, sincere. Pulling no punches. Ino was starting to wonder if she ever did.

"I am the Kazekage, not you," Gaara said with a little frown. "We've talked about it before."

"And my position hasn't changed," Temari said, a little quieter, a little wounded.

"Mine either."

Ino didn't have a clue what they were arguing about -- though it wasn't much of an argument; Gaara wasn't willing to reconsider his stance or think twice about Temari's and that was pretty much it.

"... If you had been too much of a threat to them, you would be dead. I... would not like it."

Temari blinked quickly and looked down at her hands. Ino looked away, bothered. She didn't like seeing underneath Temari's bitch armor; it just seemed wrong.

"A good thing... Hm." Temari lifted her head, looked at Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke. "I owe you. All three of you." She gave them a faint smirk. "Usually I don't like owing people much, but for you I'll make an exception."

Sakura waved her hand to dismiss the idea, surprised. "Ah -- it's alright."

Naruto was blushing a little. "Hey, we're friends, right? There's no debts between friends."

"Sure there is," Shikamaru drawled. "Or else I'm never going to get my book back from Kiba."

Ino narrowed her eyes, suspicious. "Since when does Kiba read your books?"

Shikamaru pretended he was interested in some shapeless wisp of cloud and conveniently forgot to answer. Naruto looked away guiltily. "Uh, I have no idea either."

"... Oh, gross!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes in a drawn-out 'I am not even surprised but it's still pitiful' way. Temari snorted, with about the same feeling.

Ino pointed and said "Shikamaru, I can't _believe_ you!", but inside she was grinning because they had all relaxed, even just a bit. She waited until Sakura's faint smile had subsided before nodding at her. "Hey, Forehead. Your turn." 

Sakura started raking her fingers through the sand and making little piles. "... I regret that I keep being dead weight."

Ino opened her mouth to protest, on principle, a little shocked that Naruto and Sasuke weren't; but then Sakura looked up, and her eyes glinted in a sharp, diamond-hard way.

"It's never going to happen again."

Ino looked at her best friend, her oldest rival, and felt like Sasuke and Naruto had taken her away again. Because right now she knew without a doubt that Sakura had moved past her. Because Ino wasn't who Sakura was aiming for anymore, wasn't who she was measuring herself up against. They weren't rivals anymore in any way that counted.

It ached. She smiled, though, thin and approving, because if she didn't approve then she would be worthless as a friend too.

"Sasuke knows why I'm glad." Sakura rested her cheek on her knees and smiled at him, a little shaky. "I'm glad for you."

Once again Ino felt like she was accidentally overhearing some randomly chosen part of a private conversation, and even more when Sasuke's dark eyes softened.

It didn't last, though, and then he looked away, gazing inwards. "I'm not. I still feel like it's wrong."

Sakura looked a little sad. "It's not."

"It is." He breathed out slowly, straightened his shoulders, regret giving place to sober determination. "The other choice is worse, though, so that's it."

Naruto chuckled almost silently and his hand slid across the sand, curled around Sasuke's wrist. To Ino's surprise, Sasuke allowed it.

"You make everything so friggin' complicated."

"Yeah, well. Your turn."

It came to Ino at that moment that Naruto and Sasuke weren't just doing Sakura, but also _each other_. She should have been more politically correct or romantic or whatnot, but in her own mind she didn't have to, and _Sasuke and Naruto were having sex with each other_.

The bitch hadn't told her _that_. Ooh, she was going to get it. Though it explained a hell of a lot, like why she seemed to still feel insecure about having two hot boyfriends ready to share with another guy just so they could date her, and -- and it really wasn't the time and place to dwell on it, so Ino put a lid on it and let it simmer in a corner of her mind.

"I regret," Naruto said, and his hand fell away from Sasuke's wrist. Sasuke bumped the back of his hand against Naruto's fingers fake-accidentally, like he was telling him 'hey, why'd you let go' and a corner of her brain said 'oh yeah, definitely doing it.' Another part said 'this is love' and 'I didn't think Sasuke really could.'

"I regret," Naruto said again, a little choked up, like he didn't want them to know it hurt but it was too hard for him to do anything but a shitty job at hiding it.

Sakura's fingers wrapped around Naruto's other hand, that he held in a fist on his lap, and she leaned against his shoulder, waiting in silence.

"... I couldn't control him."

"What part of 'unbreakable sleep jutsu' do you have a problem with, moron?" Sasuke asked, almost conversationally.

"The unbreakable part," Naruto said with a laugh that sounded a little like there was a sob caught somewhere behind it.

Sasuke snorted. "You would. Idiot."

"Yes, it is expected of you," Gaara said, smiling faintly.

Naruto took a deep breath and threw himself into the rest before, Ino supposed, anyone could tell him it wasn't actually his fault. "I'm grateful to you all, for not being dead, and for being here, and you better not die. Ever."

"You're pretty sappy, Uzumaki," Temari commented with a teasing little smirk.

Naruto glared at her a bit. "No I'm not."

"Uh huh. Sure. You're a giant sap."

Naruto turned huge blue eyes to his female teammate. A little overplayed, not quite hiding the pain behind, but he was trying and Ino thought that was something. "Sakura-chan, she's being mean to me."

"My poor dear," Sakura said with fond mockery, and slipped her fingers in his hair to comb it away from his forehead. Naruto leaned into her hand for a second.

"If you're gonna fight her for my honor, can I watch?"

Unsurprisingly, Sakura rapped her knuckles on his skull, though it was so light Naruto only said "Ow!" out of habit.

Shikamaru was the one who interrupted them, quietly but determined. "Sasuke, your turn."

"I regret," Sasuke said, and then frowned like he was disappointed in himself for falling into the silly game pattern. "I'm still weak."

Ino sighed. The guy was shaping up to be one of the most lethal ninja of their generation, and he complained about being too weak. Someone here had a really skewed sense of perspective, and she didn't think it was her. "Another clause. Concrete things only! No general moping allowed." Sasuke glared at her. Aw damn, now he probably thought she was insulting him or something. She met his eyes, steady and serious. "Sasuke-kun, please."

"That's concrete enough for me. I'm too weak, what else is there to say?" he said. There was something raw in his voice that made Ino look away. "Next."

"One thing you feel good about," Sakura prompted him softly.

Sasuke closed his eyes. For a moment Ino thought he wasn't going to find anything to answer to that one either.

"... Marrying you," he said, so quiet she almost didn't hear it.

Aw, hell, and why was Ino getting teary-eyed so suddenly? She looked at Sakura; it would make her happy.

Sakura was smiling, sweet and soft and a little shaky. "I -- think I'll keep it for my next turn, hm?"

Naruto stretched his leg, getting sand up his pants leg, and nudged Sasuke's foot.

Ino could practically see the connection between the three of them, however subdued they were acting at the moment. She tactfully looked away, feeling a pang of envy. She hadn't even found a guy she could see herself with for more than a few months; and in the most unconventional way ever, Sakura had those two, who seemed determined to stay until death. So unfair.

"Okay, my turn," she said.

She thought about it for a second. Nothing she had to say was going to measure up, of course. It wasn't going to help them feel understood if she chose badly.

Anything related to that big second-test clusterfuck would probably come across as generic and canned, and also pretty stupid; there was no way she might have been around to help, or been able to do a thing had she been, and she knew it. Of course she worried for them, and of course she wished she could have helped, but she wished she would win the lottery and buy herself three shops' worth of trendy clothes too.

Missing Sakura would be strong enough, but it would probably come across as if Ino was trying to make her feel guilty.

She still needed something personal. Something that wouldn't paint her in a very flattering light, so that other people would feel free to do the same later on.

"I regret... That when my aunt eloped with that civilian and left Konoha, and my father worried himself sick over her, the only thing I cared about was that he wasn't paying attention to me. The guy she married was bad news, Dad knew it, Mom knew it, I should have known it, but it didn't really matter to me. I regret I made my dad feel like he couldn't talk about her with me, every time we got some secondhand news about how bad she had it."

She did regret it a bit; though she'd been a child, and jealousy and lack of maturity were to be expected.

"And I regret that when she finally got a divorce and came back to Konoha last year and she was too ashamed to come home, and I knew Dad couldn't bring himself to take the first step, I didn't try to meet her and bridge the gap. Now I have a cousin who's a Yamanaka in name only and he could have gotten seriously hurt or even died before I even got to know him."

"Oh." Sakura looked at Ino, biting her lip. "I didn't know you felt that bad about it."

That... was pretty much because Ino didn't. She felt a little dishonest for exaggerating so much. She did feel kind of bad about the situation, but she didn't obsess over it; she'd just decided to go and fix it. She gave Sakura a reassuring half-smile and continued.

"I'm glad that I got my passport approved so I could come here during the one-month gap to train the hell out of him," she said with a mildly evil smirk, making Sakura -- and Temari, how strange -- chuckle. "He's in the tournament next month and he better make the Yamanakas look good. He's got so many clan jutsu to learn! I swear, I don't know where to start."

Naruto blinked, and gave her a tentative smile. "I think we met him before the first test. He's a fun kid. In a team with Hinata's little sister, right? And... some guy. Yeah, he's friendly."

Ino grinned back. "Yes, he is kind of cute, for a brat. But he better be a hard worker too."

Shikamaru shrugged. "He's been in Konoha less than two years and he's already done with the Academy and on a team taking the Chuunin exam. I wouldn't worry about that."

Surprised, Ino beamed at him. "Hee! Yeah, you're right. He'll be fine. Okay, next. Gaara?"

It was pretty much the last spot of fun they had for a while.

Gaara regretted that no matter what he did, part of the village would still tell tales to their kids about Gaara of the Desert, who soaked his sand in the blood of children. "At least they've started saying I only do it if they misbehave," he added, strangely melancholic.

Temari hated that she couldn't change people's minds about how much Gaara had changed, how totally different he was. But she was happy that some -- more and more -- people were changing their mind on their own. Made her feel a little less cynical about the human race. A little.

Shikamaru regretted that he'd let himself fall into a routine and stopped stretching himself and now he wasn't meeting expectations.

Of course Team Seven trumped them all.

"I regret I didn't go to Tsunade-sama much sooner, without waiting for an excuse. I regret that for so long I was glad for low-grade exercises for my health instead of grabbing the opportunity for all it was worth. I'm glad she agreed to take me as an apprentice, though I still don't know why she bothered."

"I as good as killed them. That big healer guy and that kid. I'd been playing around with that kid. He had that funny attack with a weirdass name. And they're operating today and they're --not optimistic. I'm glad -- I'm glad, Sakura-chan told me, at least it was fast."

"I couldn't fight him off. I couldn't protect them. He just left because the jounin were coming. I'm not fucking glad, there's nothing to be glad about."

Sakura, Ino thought, would eventually be okay. She had decided on a course of action to fix her shortcomings and she was determined to see it through.

Naruto... Ino had no idea how on Earth he would have 'as good as' killed a kid, and she'd had to swallow a gasp and a 'No way!' But it was classified and need to know, and all she needed to know was how Naruto felt about what had happened -- not the facts themselves but how Naruto took them.

Sasuke's issues were more disturbing, because when he said "I'm not good enough for my brother," she wanted to say, 'well, of course. You're younger, he had five more years to train.' Then she realized Sasuke hadn't meant _'I'm not good enough to stand against him.'_ He meant _'I disappointed him.'_

God, but he was fucked up. Ino felt the last remnants of her old crush die. Sasuke had a gorgeous face and an even better body, but he was such a mess, and she didn't know why it had taken her so long to realize how deep the fault lines ran.

But Sasuke had been fucked up for a good long while, and he wasn't that much worse off now than he'd been last week; he had long since learned to function around his damage, and a short discussion on a beach wouldn't make much of a dent. Ino nodded to herself and decided to concentrate on Naruto. The sooner he bounced back, the sooner Sasuke and Sakura's dark mood would lift.

"You're not arguing, Ino-pig."

Ino blinked and looked up at her best friend. Sakura watched her, a little wary, a little calculating. Naruto and Sasuke both looked stiff, their faces sporting unconvincing 'I don't care what you all think of what I just said' expressions. Ino knew a loaded question when she heard one. So did Shikamaru and the Sand siblings; they left the answer up to her.

"There's nothing to argue, is there? It's how you guys feel. No one can tell you that's wrong."

"You were, earlier," Naruto said.

Ino waved her hand in a dismissive way and smiled her understanding. "We weren't telling you that your feelings are wrong, just that if you're going to feel guilty it should be about things you really were responsible for, hm? You guys saved Gaara's life. You guys survived. Nothing that happened around those facts should make you feel guilty."

She let the silence settle; Naruto stared sightlessly at his feet as he thought about it.

"... And about those guys I ki -- hurt... You're not gonna tell me it's not my fault?"

Oh, god, he was going to break her heart if he kept looking at her with those eyes. It didn't matter how weird his pupils looked, after so long seeing them round, that face went right to her heartstrings. Ino moved on hands and knees, crawled closer just so she could put a hand on his knee and squeeze.

"Naruto, we weren't there. You're the only one who knows how big or how little a part you played. It's something you're going to need a little longer to untangle -- just don't get stuck on that feeling and never take a closer look, hm? It's okay to grieve and to regret. It's not okay to take more of the blame on yourself than you truly deserve. And if you really _are_ guilty of something, then it's normal to _feel_ guilty -- and then you have to find a way to atone." She paused for a second, letting the words make their way through. "Just sitting there allowing it to crush you is no help to anyone. Not you, not the people you wronged, not the people who love you. You know?"

She met Naruto's eyes for a moment, until he nodded slowly -- more acknowledgement that she had spoken than agreement, eyes already going unfocused as he considered her words. Then she sat back down; closer than she had been, but it was okay now.

Sakura gave her a trembling little smile, but it was Temari's thoughtful, weighing gaze that startled her. Shikamaru was smiling faintly. Ino huffed a little and flicked her bangs back behind her ear. What, did they all think she really was stupid?

"...Thanks."

Naruto still wasn't looking entirely convinced, but it didn't matter right now. He'd think on it. And he'd deal with the guilt faster if he had a strong support net of people by whom he felt valued, it was basic post-traumatic field care. So she squeezed his knee again and softened her voice. "We just love you, you know? We all do."

Gaara nodded slowly in agreement as Naruto's eyes filled with unshed tears.

"I wouldn't put it quite like that," Shikamaru drawled.

Temari smirked at him. "Not homoerotic enough for you?"

Naruto laughed -- a slightly too-thick, too-wet sound, but a laugh all the same. He rubbed at his face with his sleeve, fighting to get himself back under control. "Man, I don't wanna know about your homowhatever, Shikamaru."

Temari nodded, falsely commiserating. "You've got enough of that at home, huh."

Sasuke's eyelid twitched. Ino tried not to find it funny.

"Hey!" Naruto protested. "Shika just doesn't go there."

"... A fact for which I am truly grateful."

"You're just jealous you didn't grab him first," Sakura said to Shikamaru, squeezing Naruto's hand.

Ino sighed mournfully. "I don't know if Shikamaru is jealous, but I know I am. Those abs! If only I had seen Naruto shirtless before you snatched him up." She paused, thoughtfully tapped her lip with a finger. "Yes, I believe this will do as my regret for this turn."

Naruto started blushing.

"... Ino-pig, are you flirting with my boyfriend?"

Ino smirked at Sakura, slow and satisfied. "Oh, I wouldn't _dare_."

Sakura threw a fistful of sand at her. Instead of descending into immaturity with her, Ino dusted herself off and gave a disdainful little sniff, pretending she wasn't smirking. "Oh, _really_ , Sakura."

Her best friend rolled her eyes and made a 'Just you wait, I'll get you for this' little grimace. "Gaara, it's your turn," Sakura said primly, ignoring her ostensibly. Ino smirked harder.

"Is it?" He blinked. "Hm. I don't know that I regret anything else. Nothing that's worth mentioning, at any rate."

"It doesn't matter if it's a little silly," Ino said. "You could say you regret that it's been too long since the last time you ate your favorite pastry, or something."

Gaara watched her in silence with his too-pale eyes for a couple of unnerving seconds, and then he smiled faintly. "I regret I don't like pastries."

Ino blinked, caught flat-footed. Had Gaara just tried to make a joke? She let out a chuckle, more out of surprise than amusement. Naruto snickered; Shikamaru snorted; Temari made a soft choking sound and started grinning.

"Heh." Temari smiled at her little brother, with a sincerity and lack of cynicism that surprised Ino all over again. "In that case, I'm glad, because that means I can give all my baking experiments to Kankuro. I regret that it's probably going to poison him," she added, ironic. "How terrible. At least he's already inside the hospital."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "I regret that I let myself be conned into coming here."

He paused, sobered up.

"No, not really. I suppose... I'm not very happy with how little I've been visiting Asuma-sensei since he and Kurenai-sensei had the kid. I should fix that. Stop saying 'I'm too busy' or 'They're not going to want visitors today' so often."

Ino gave him an understanding look. Of their team, Shikamaru had always been the closest to their teacher, and by far. While she liked Asuma-sensei just fine, and was glad they'd gotten him for a teacher, for Shikamaru he was more of a beloved uncle, almost a second father. She could tell what had happened, too, and how slowly the gap had widened -- a simple 'I shouldn't be selfish, I should let him concentrate more on his real family.'

Ino smiled faintly. Shikamaru didn't look like it, but he could be surprisingly sensitive in some ways.

"I'll remind you," she promised. "And if you get sidetracked again, I'll remind you more pointedly."

"Nag me, you mean." Shikamaru grimaced at her, pretending he minded.

"Nag you _with kunai_ , even."

A rueful chuckle escaped from his throat. "That would be good, yeah. Thanks, Ino."

She waved it off, though the gratitude made her happy. The gratitude, and knowing she could read him so well, and knowing she could _help_ , in her own way. Not as directly as some, not in a material, tangible way, but an important way even so.

She looked at the Team Seven trio; Naruto still depressed, but slowly unwinding into melancholy; Sakura leaning against his shoulder -- casually, not like she had found him in a blizzard and was trying to keep him from freezing anymore; Sasuke... well, still unreadable, but at least he wasn't scowling. A couple more turns, perhaps, some more emotional bonding, and then hopefully they could just goof off together. Goofing off was another good way to bond, and an even better way to release tension and negativity.

They were all looking at Sakura now, the whole group, getting used to the cycle, but Sakura was staring at the sand, as if chewing her words over.

"Sakura-chan? It's your--"

"I don't like the house."

Sasuke blinked, and Naruto opened his mouth to say something; but Sasuke nudged him and he swallowed his words. Sakura scratched her foot with a chipped nail, not looking at either of her teammates.

"I know I should have told you two, but I just... I don't like the house. It's good to live together, but -- I feel like we're camping. Like we're not _living_ there -- we're just _waiting_." She took a deep breath and charged through the rest of her grievances, irritated and guilty. "And we can't knock down the wall between the upstairs bedrooms to make a decent-sized room because it's a load-bearing wall, and there's really not enough space to raise children in it, and the garden is ugly and the light is wrong, and -- and I just don't like it!"

She deflated, once again staring at her feet, pretending that her wriggling toes were of the utmost importance.

"... Oh." Naruto blinked. "I didn't know. I kinda -- I mean, it's bigger than my old apartment or Sasuke's, and I never had a garden before, so... I didn't think it was that bad." He paused. "But if you want to move, I'm game. I mean, it's just a house. Sasuke?"

Sasuke was, once again, brooding. Ino wasn't sure why, exactly. Houses, houses, what were his issues about -- oh, right. It had probably belonged to one of his dead relatives -- heck, no 'probably' about it. She knew it had to, by virtue of standing in the Uchiha district in the first place.

"I agree," he said suddenly. "It's someone else's home."

Naruto sighed. "Yeah but the whole district is someone else's home. And yours --"

Sakura kicked his ankle, but too late. Sasuke's jaw was already twitching.

"What about Uchiha's home?" Gaara inquired.

Sasuke gave him a flat, stony look. "I burned it down," he said in a tone that didn't invite commentary.

"Oh. Is that your regret for this turn?"

Sasuke scowled; Gaara had clearly overstepped his bounds. Being Gaara, he didn't seem to give a damn. Okay, Ino was definitely glad he'd come. Sasuke needed to learn to tolerate being pushed.

"No it's not."

"Renting is out?" Temari asked, in a matter-of-fact tone that was hard to take offense to, thought Sasuke obviously felt like the topic itself was doing that well enough. "There's only building from scratch left, then."

Ino grudgingly conceded the point. It had obviously not occurred to the members of Team Seven yet, considering the way they blinked.

"... It would be expensive, though," Naruto said slowly. "And it would take ages."

"Geeze, don't worry about that now," Shikamaru said, waving it off. "You've got plenty of time."

Ino quirked an eyebrow at him; she thought she recognized that calculating gleam in his eye. She would bet he was already trying to figure out how to arrange that. She'd leave it to him; he was better with concrete problems. The psychology was all hers.

"I regret I didn't notice," Naruto said with earnest apology. "We're gonna fix it, huh Sasuke?"

"Yeah, yeah." Sasuke rolled his eyes; "Same. Next."

Ino scoffed at Sasuke's blatant avoidance. But it didn't matter too much anymore; he didn't look as tightly wound now, just bored and annoyed that he would be forced to socialize. Naruto looked better, too, faced with a problem that was well in his ability to fix.

She would have liked to push them a little farther, but they would probably start balking really soon. Time to relax.

"I regret," she proclaimed sadly, "That I didn't buy that pretty dress when I could, because all that money went into buying you lot edible food at the hospital. It was Water Country exclusive fashion!"

Sakura huffed. "Well ex _cuse_ me -- wait. How pretty are we talking?"

Ino started laughing. Shikamaru groaned. "Oh god. If you two are going to be girly, I'm done."

"Aw, Shikamaru! Come on."

"No, that's it, no more. I think I speak for everyone here."

Sasuke muttered a 'hear, hear' that made Ino do a double-take. Gaara nodded. Naruto jumped on his feet, startling everyone. "Yeah! Time to... Do something else. Like -- uh. Okay, we have this _awesome_ beach..."

Temari gave the rocks poking out of the sand and the smelly seaweed a pointed look. "Uh huh?"

"There's no way we can't do something with it!"

Ino gave a falsely disappointed sigh. "Oh, fine. ...Oh, look, there's an empty bottle. We could use it to point --"

"Spin the Bottle?" Sakura asked with a vaguely horrified grimace. Gaara arched his... eyebrow ridge in question; Ino and Sakura both looked away and giggled nervously at the thought of having to explain it to him.

"No, no, just, I don't know -- we could play 'Say one good thing about someone else!' Wouldn't it be fun?"

"Oh ew! You and your feel-good schmoopy... _feelingness_ ," Naruto protested. "We should play a manly game."

"Like seeing who can dive from the cliffs without hitting a reef head first, you mean?" Ino retorted, rolling her eyes.

Naruto's face lit up. "Oh yeah!"

"... Men."

"The water's too shallow, no one would win," Gaara pointed out, making Naruto pout, cheeks puffed up.

Ino grumbled. "And if you want to play any game with seaweed, _I'm_ done."

Temari gave her deep-throated chuckle and threw the boys a challenging look. "Of course, if we had to play that 'say one good thing' game, we would have to add rules. For example, you can't formulate it like 'I guess you're not quite as terminally stupid on days that don't end in Y'."

Sasuke looked like he had smelled something stinky, at least until he pointedly turned his head to stare at the sea. Naruto stepped down the slope to block Sasuke's view, tilted his head to peer at his expression -- and then he cracked up.

"Oh man. I take it back, it would be _great_."

"Shut up," Sasuke muttered. Sakura pressed her knuckles to her lips to hide her grin.

"But Sasu-kins has this handicap... How about he says it in his native language, and I translate for him?"

Sasuke threw him a dark glare. Naruto nodded like he had said something deep.

"That, for example, is 'geez, Naruto, thanks for the offer, you know I'm shy in public'."

Temari and Shikamaru were laughing, Gaara watching with faint amusement. Sasuke suddenly swept his leg out, leaning back on his hands, and kicked Naruto in the thigh, making him stumble back. Arms wheeling until he regained his balance, Naruto grinned at him and then gave a limp-wristed hand-flick.

"And this one is 'Stop embarrassing me, I'm going to blush! Oh my'."

Sasuke growled and rolled forward on his feet, using his momentum to slip under Naruto's guard and catch him with a shoulder in the stomach. He took a last couple of steps with Naruto thrown over his shoulder, laughing wheezily, and then he dumped him in the surf.

Naruto resurfaced, choking on the water and still laughing, and said he couldn't translate that in mixed company.

+

Ino was kind of sad, when the sun started going down, that they had to go. Even though her hair was a mess and she had sand in places no sand had any business being, and the tip of her nose was turning an unfashionable shade of well-done pink. They'd thrown sand and seaweed and a couple of crabs at each other; they'd all ended up getting dragged in the water, sometimes several times in a row. They'd swam, a little, between unpractical rocks, despite the lack of swimsuits and towels and the discomfort of air-drying. They'd horsed around. They'd had fun. They'd all grown a little closer.

Now they had to return to normal life and their current worries and even though she knew it was necessary she couldn't help but wish it could have waited a little while longer. That break would help, she was sure of it. But...

But, nothing. Ino sighed as she followed Temari up the sloping path, twisting saltwater out of her ponytail. Sakura and her boyfriends were on her heels, Shikamaru and Gaara bringing up the rear. Soon they would be back on the road, and then back to the village, and then --

They didn't even get that far, because where the path flattened before the road, Kakashi was waiting, inscrutable and vaguely sinister in his permanent black mask, an ominous square of paper in hand. For a second Ino was tempted to shove Team Seven back down the path before they could see him, hear what other bad news or reprimand he had to share.

Kakashi gave her a polite nod and an inquisitive look, and she reluctantly nodded back, a professional to another. Yes, they'd be fine. They could take it. Ino didn't _like_ it, but they could.

"Naruto?" Kakashi called as the group came to a stop around him.

Naruto didn't hesitate more than a second before he came forward, shoulders tensing again. "...Yeah?"

She realized in a flash that Kakashi's eye wasn't _distant_ \-- tired, but not remote.

And then he softened. Smiled.

"The kid woke up."

Naruto stared at him for a couple of seconds, and then he made a funny little hiccupping noise. Then his teammates were standing at his sides, and Sasuke was pressing a hand between Naruto's shoulder blades as he buried his face in Sakura's neck.

Ino slipped her arm under Shikamaru's elbow so she could herd the rest of them away; and when Gaara wouldn't come she hooked his arm, too, and grinned a wet, relieved grin. Now, _now_ she really believed they'd be okay. 


	11. Absolution (Naruto)

They'd made love to him all night. Sakura kissing him long and slow, her hands keeping his shoulders pinned to the mattress as Sasuke rocked patiently between his thighs. Sasuke playing backrest, pressed against him from shoulder blades to hips, his teeth worrying at Naruto's neck almost too lightly to count as bites, as Sakura straddled his lap and sank down on him with her eyes staring straight into his.

He'd cried a couple times. They hadn't laughed.

Sakura had said "I love you." Sasuke had said "Naruto" like perhaps he meant the same. He'd believed them both.

He loved them too. He loved them.

It was nothing so simple as the easy warmth Iruka offered. Nothing like Jiraiya's pride disguised as bullying. It wasn't even anything like the happy bubbles of his old crush on Sakura herself, or the more confusing antagonistic, mildly obsessive glee in reaction to Sasuke's rare acknowledgement, or that melancholy hope for the two of them to find each other somehow, even if...

It was "mine" and "kill to keep you (alive-safe-with me)" and "anything you ask for, it's yours", and he just wished very hard neither of them would ask him to let them go, because it would tear him in two right down the middle.

Even now it still had him in a strange mood, not negative, but not exactly good or nice. Not quite what he would have called happy. Something he wasn't used to...

The earth felt more solid under his feet. The world was calmer. He didn't need to fight it all so that it would see him; they saw, it was all he needed.

Sakura caught him looking, smiled. He smiled back a bit, stretched his leg under the coffee table to nudge hers.

They had been relocated to a more secure hotel, with two rooms with twin beds (real beds, not too-narrow bunk-torture implements) and a kitchenette, surrounding a tiny living room of sorts. In the living room there was a low table surrounded by cushions. Naruto didn't think any of the three of them had even glanced at the inside of the second bedroom Sakura should have used for the sake of decency. Kakashi hadn't said anything.

(Naruto had the feeling Kakashi had spent the night exiled on the hotel roof pretending not to hear a thing. He was sure later he would laugh. For now he just smiled.)

"Hey. Start your guest list."

Naruto took the sheet of paper from Sasuke, who pretended not to be looking at him. He wrote 'all my friends' and said, "Done!" Sasuke grumbled half-heartedly.

"I need a hard number, idiot. And one that isn't the total population of Konoha."

Sakura chuckled. She was writing her own thing -- not a list, but a letter to her parents. 'Hey mom and dad, we need to get married, oh, yesterday, please help. Location, catering, decorations and such? You've got a whole month and a half.' Except, Naruto supposed, better written. (They were gonna owe Sakura's parents until the next century but Naruto hoped quality time with their grandchild would pay some of that back.)

 

Most efficient use of their month's lag before the third stage, the tournament: training, training, and when Kakashi put his foot down (and he would) take care of anything the Harunos absolutely couldn't. It counted as rest, surely.

 

Sasuke had started bitching about his political guests under his breath a half-hour ago. It was hilarious. Sakura was still trying to decide what to foist off on her mom and what on Ino, and hoping neither of them would feel slighted.

"May I have your inkpot? Mine's empty."

Sasuke stretched his arm to hand it to Sakura and winced, just a little. Naruto moved behind him on hands and knees, peering down the back of his shirt.

"Huh. Nice sunburn."

Sasuke only threw him a quick glance before he went back to scribbling. "I hate the beach," he muttered. Sakura briefly looked up from her much-struck out letter to chuckle at him.

Naruto lifted the back of Sasuke's shirt to take a look at the rest of his back. The sunburn was confined to his shoulders and a little down his shoulder blades. "Take it off," he asked, reaching for their first-aid kit.

"It's not that bad," Sasuke said, frowning at his list. "... Okita or Sugiaru..."

Naruto sat behind him and tugged, and Sasuke allowed the shirt to come off with barely a token 'you're worrying too much, I'm manlier than that' sigh. Under Naruto's fingers the skin radiated fever-warmth.

"Why the hell do they need to be feuding _now_. Which one?"

Sakura flipped a well-used coin. "Sugiaru."

Chuckling, Naruto got some burn cream and started massaging it in, even though he agreed, Sasuke's back wasn't that bad off. Sasuke probably knew but he let him get away with it. Naruto wondered how long it was going to last, all that 'No, I'm just being nice to Naruto because he needs it and I guess I can grit my teeth and bear the horribleness of -- oh, shut up, I wasn't cuddling. I don't need it at all, personally.' Probably not too much longer. Oh well.

"--No, wait, Ino will want to take care of the flower arrangements, but what if it clashes with Mom's decorations..."

Naruto sneaked Sasuke a glance and they both pretended to be very absorbed in whatever they were doing -- Sasuke, his list; Naruto, Sasuke's neck.

"How I wish we could just elope."

Neither Naruto nor Sasuke replied, save with groans of mutual dismayed agreement. It wasn't the first time the suggestion had been brought up -- by any of them.

 

But Sasuke couldn't afford to have the validity of his marriage contested. Not when he was about to officially restart the Uchiha. End of discussion.

Sighing, Sakura went to pour herself more tea, but only a few drops dribbled out.

"Don't move, I'm going," Naruto said, pushing himself up off the table before she could. He picked up the pot and went to the sink. Wash, wash. Fill, fill. Place on cooker. Watch as the water heats up, bubbles everywhere. Behind him the room was quiet, silence underlined by the scratches of pencil on paper.

He prepared the tea and turned around. Sakura flicked him a quick smile, Sasuke a 'keeping track of you' glance.

It reminded him of that time they were working on the seal, where he could do nothing but watch and be quiet as they figured things out, but this time around he didn't feel so much like a useless spectator. They had spent the night wrapped around him. If he asked, if he even looked like he was trying not to ask, they'd drop everything right away.

He smiled a little and put the pot down by her hand. He didn't sit back down.

He still had this one thing to take care of.

"I'm going for a walk. Yeah?"

Sakura started to push off the table, a worried look on her face. "Wait, I'll come--"

"Sakura." Resting a hand on Sakura's forearm to stop her, Sasuke watched him. Naruto smiled down at them both, a little apologetic.

"I'll be back soon. Write your letter, okay? Tell your parents I said hi."

He gave them a little wave and left. He walked, out of the building, and down the street, and right to the hospital.

Kakashi-sensei had fallen into step with him at some point, probably following from right when he left the building and drifting closer so that he hadn't even tripped Naruto's awareness. Hands in his pockets, Naruto paused on the hospital steps, waiting for advice, a rebuttal, another order. Kakashi just pushed the door and held it open for him.

"Room 209," he said.

Naruto opened his mouth, sneaked him a glance. Stared straight ahead, squaring his shoulders.

"Thanks, Sensei."

He walked in. Kakashi didn't follow. One flight of stairs, two. He didn't let himself slow down. His fists were clenched; he made a conscious effort to relax them, pretending they weren't shaking a little.

He was still a dozen feet away from his goal when the door to room 209 opened, startling him into stopping. A girl walked out of the hospital room -- twelve or thirteen year old, sleek black hair in a jaw-length cut.

The second she saw him she went from serious and a little stern to battle-ready, flicking kunai from her sleeves to her hands in a move that looked entirely instinctive.

"Back off!" she shouted at him, all bristled and angry.

She was terrified. Naruto wanted to throw up.

"W-what are you waiting for?! Just go already!"

Naruto winced. "Listen, I..."

"Who's that?"

They both froze. The voice coming from the room was a boy's, young and high, wheezy and weak. Curious anyway.

"No one," the girl snapped back through the half-open door. "Go back to sleep."

"No really, who is it?"

She glared stonily at Naruto, planting herself firmly in front of the door so he'd have no way to go in but through her. "No one you want to see."

There was a long pause.

"... Oh."

Naruto waited. If the kid told her not to let him in, he'd... well. There was nothing he could do. He told himself at least he would have tried, and that would make a difference, right?

Right?

"... Mikuri..."

The brunette stiffened.

"Let him in, please."

She opened her mouth to protest, but she already looked like she knew it would be useless. She closed her mouth without talking, glaring murder at Naruto, and then she turned on her heel and stalked in the room first. Naruto hung his head, took a deep, bracing breath, and walked to the door, counting every step. The kid's voice had been shaking.

He came in to see the little redhead attempting to push himself up his pillows on trembling arms; his other teammate had a hand on his shoulder and was attempting to keep him still, though when he saw Naruto he froze, the blood draining from his face.

The redhead looked even smaller in that adult-sized bed, the bandages swallowing his whole body from chest to hips. He looked like he should have been bronzed by the sun but his skin was sallow from massive blood loss. Naruto stayed by the door, hand gripping the doorjamb.

"Um."

The kid's voice was weak, there were dark circles under his eyes. He probably shouldn't have been awake. He looked nervous, too, as he stared back at Naruto. The girl -- Mikuri? -- was standing guard by the bed, eyes dark with threats; the other boy was frozen on the spot.

"I'm so sorry." It just blurted out, past the knot in his throat. Seeing him like that, Naruto wanted to cry. He'd done that to him, hurt him and scared him and broke that unconscious trust, that innocence. "I'm _so sorry_. It's alright -- if you never forgive me, it's alright. I don't deserve--"

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He bit his lip, closed his eyes. Still no response. That was pretty clear. He hadn't expected any better, had he? It was the kid's right anyway.

"...I just wanted to say that. I'll leave you alone now. I promise. I'll keep away from--"

"I want a can of soda."

Naruto popped an eye open and stared at him, incredulous. "... Whuh?"

The redhead was still pale and shaky, but there was a smile now on his pointy little face. "Get me a can of soda. The green and blue ones. Yeah? 'cause we don't have them at home and they're really great."

Naruto stared some more, and stared, and -- "Heh. Heheh." He wiped his eyes with his forearm and laughed, relief bubbling up unstoppable. The kid's teammates were staring at him and boggling but he couldn't possibly have cared any less. "Alright. Anything you want. In the distributors?" The girl nodded, bemused, almost against her will. "I'll be right back!"

A nurse yelled at him not to run in the corridor as he zipped past. He just burst out laughing.

"Sorry!" he called back, not sorry at all, and skidded to a halt in front of the first distributor he found. There he discovered a little problem. Namely that in leaving the hotel so suddenly on his quest he'd forgotten his wallet.

"Here," said a Konoha ANBU, holding out a hand full of change. The rest of him was still melted into the wall. Any other day Naruto would have gasped or yelled 'show-off!' and been very annoyed he'd been stalked by even more guys than just Kakashi-sensei. He beamed at the masked face and snatched up the change to feed the machine instead.

"Thanks, you're awesome. I'll pay you back!"

The ANBU chuckled, the sound muffled by the porcelain, and melted away again. Naruto snatched the three cans he'd gotten and raced back with his armful, waving. On the way back he almost knocked down the same nurse. She threw a bedpan at him.

Life was beautiful.

"Tadah!"

They'd obviously been discussing him; the girl and the glasses-wearing boy were huddled together and scowling. The redhead blew a messy lock of hair away from his nose and his lips twitched in uncontrollable amusement.

"Hey."

"Hey." Naruto stepped forward slowly and paused out of arm's reach of the bed, aware of his teammates' nervousness. "Delivery for you."

"It's gonna be hard to get it from here," the kid commented, scratching his chin as he eyed him askance.

"Yeah, I wasn't gonna throw it," Naruto said, voice growing quieter, gentler.

He was such a _brave_ boy. Naruto wanted to throw an arm around his shoulders and ruffle his hair and teach him all his techniques. He pictured Sasuke and Sakura's faces. 'Hey, he followed me home, can I keep him?' But the kid was still nervous despite his bravado, and it hurt every time Naruto noticed a moment of hesitation, a flicker of wariness.

But they could fix it, he knew that now.

He stepped up to the bed, handed him a can, looked at the other two. "Want some?"

The glasses-wearing boy looked purely appalled. The girl glared.

"Mmmmmmh, so good!" the redhead said, cradling his can in both hands, and sneaked them a little look to see if his display had helped. The girl grumbled and snatched a can from Naruto's hands.

"Sure you don't want it?"

Glasses-boy seemed to be attempting the ANBU's wall-melting trick. "N-no, t-t-thank you."

"Well." He turned back to the redhead. "Guess that means you get to keep it for later."

"He's already pushing it by having one," Mikuri said. "The doctor won't be happy."

"He's never happy unless he's making me unhappy anyway," the redhead protested, looking clearly miserable. The girl grumbled under her breath again, surrendering to his puppy eyes. Naruto tried not to laugh.

"Um... You can sit down?"

Naruto grabbed a stool and sat, feet tangling immediately in the wooden legs, nervously. "Er. My name's Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto. Yours?"

"Oh right. Um. Yamagi Yakitaro. But you can call me Taro. Or Yaki. Or whatever. It's kind of a mouthful."

Naruto gave a tentative grin. "Yeah? One of my buddies is named Sarutobi Konohamaru, I don't think you can complain."

"Whoa, that _is_ a mouthful."

They stared at each other, awkward conversation halted. Yakitaro's lips twitched, and then he smiled at Naruto, hesitant and nervous and utterly sincere.

Naruto grinned back, and pretended his eyes weren't shining with tears.

"So," the girl said, breaking a long silence with her acidic question. "You're classified? How's that working out for you?"

Naruto blinked. "I am? -- oh right, I guess I'd be." He scratched his head as he thought about how to explain it. "Hey, ANBU-guy? Can I tell them?"

The kids stared at him as if he was crazy -- up until the wall blurred and a masked head popped out. "Naruto-kun..." the masked man said with a long-suffering sigh.

Naruto grinned. "Can I tell them or not?" He turned to the kids. "It's okay, he's just here to keep an eye on me so I don't get kidnapped or something, I think. He's a good guy."

"You know him?" Yakitaro asked, eyes a little wide.

"Uh. Well. Actually we just met. But he's cool, guaranteed."

The ANBU shook his head and sighed again before nodding to Naruto. "The law back home was set up to protect you, and their superiors have already been informed of your identity. What you tell them is your decision." His masked face turned back to the bed and he nodded to the little redhead. "Best wishes."

He melted away again.

"Alright then." The trio were still blinking at the wall. Such cute kids. Naruto smiled at them, and then sobered up. "The story starts about eighteen years ago, when a huge monster was attacking the Fire Country..."

+

When he walked out of the hospital room, he found Sasuke and Sakura sitting on a bench at the end of the corridor. Sakura's head shot up, and Sasuke's back stiffened, both scanning his face, his body language, ready to jump in on his behalf.

It hadn't been a hour since he left the hotel. They'd tracked him down anyway.

He grinned at them extra-wide and hugged Sakura when she got up to meet him, tight and fierce; and he held out his hand to pull Sasuke to his feet, and pulled him right into the hug instead. Sasuke growled and vaguely tried to shrug him off.

"Ahem," said Kakashi, standing against the wall right past the corner with his little book out. "We are in public, you realize."

Naruto grinned an evil grin that made Sakura open her eyes wide and Sasuke stop his half-hearted attempts at leaning away, and he dragged the two of them right up to their teacher to pounce on him.

He bet today they could guilt him into paying for lunch, for once.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Long story short; they couldn't.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hm."

Naruto had expected a lot of things when he went to see Gaara next. That Gaara's guards wouldn't let him in, or make him wait -- but they had immediately waved him through on sight. That Gaara would greet him with a 'nice to see you' smile (not very likely), or with a 'why are you here' frown (much more likely), or that total absence of expression that even Sasuke didn't match (yeah, betting on that one.)

"Uh, Gaara? You're a bit close."

Gaara released his chin and leaned back, so that they weren't nose to nose anymore. Naruto gave a brief, nervous laugh, but his smile fell almost immediately. He couldn't even pretend Gaara had been looking at anything but his pupils.

"Definitive, then?"

Naruto shrugged, like he didn't care. "Looks like. Listen, I wanted to..."

He'd wanted lots of things, some of them excuses and some not, but Gaara had thrown him off his stride and now he wasn't sure where to start. He stood there in Gaara's office, trying to sort it out.

"You seem to feel better. I'm glad."

"Ah -- yeah. Me too. I mean -- I'm not glad I'm feeling better -- wait, I am glad, but I meant, I'm glad _you_ are. Uh. Are you?" Naruto frowned, suddenly suspicious.

Gaara blinked, and then gave him a faint smile. "It was mostly chakra drain. I'm fine."

"You sure? No..." He fell silent, not sure that asking about nightmares would be polite. Actually it might get pretty damn rude. Even though he... "Consequences?"

"We just doubled my usual security detail. Naruto?"

"Uh. Yes?"

"Did you want something?"

Naruto harrumphed and crossed his arms defensively. "What, I can't drop by because we're buddies and I was--" okay, no, worried was a bit embarrassing, even if it was true-- "er, wondering how you were doing?"

Gaara crossed his arms in turn and leaned back against his desk, and kept staring wordlessly at him.

He was pretty good at it, Naruto had to admit.

He sighed and sat beside Gaara on the edge of his desk. That placed his butt in much-too-close proximity to a crap-ton of top-secret documents, but Gaara didn't say anything about it, or even frown a bit.

"They're going to come back," Naruto said quietly. "Aren't they?"

Gaara nodded slowly, eyes weirdly subdued. "Not here, we don't think. There's a small risk at the tournament. A slightly bigger one on the way back. After that..." He shook his head, straightened up slightly, looked at Naruto straight-on. "You were mostly a target of opportunity. The risk isn't as high for you."

"You think that's reassuring?" Naruto retorted by reflex, and swallowed bile at the thought that it was. Not for himself but -- Sakura-chan, Sasuke. Kakashi-sensei. They'd be in the blast radius too. "I'm not gonna be happier if it lands on you!"

Gaara blinked, and gave him a small, slow-blooming smile. Naruto reddened and looked away, grumbling under his breath.

"... Do you know any of the others?" he asked, voice quiet. "Did you ever meet...?"

Gaara shook his head no. "Not in person, no. I have files, reports."

"Can I," Naruto started to say, and thought it was probably a little treasonous, but Gaara was the freaking Kazekage, so whatever, "Can I see them?"

Gaara was frowning again. He didn't ask why Naruto would want to, though. He probably got it. That need to know, _hey, you're like me_. They were such a small group, those who could say that.

_Hey, you got hunted down and killed because you were like me._

"I haven't had news for a while," Gaara warned as he pushed off his desk and went to a file cabinet behind it. "Most of the survivors are in hiding."

Survivors, meaning there were dead ones. Naruto flinched, though he'd expected as much.

"The ones who died first," he asked. "Please."

Gaara stared at him for a second, likely measuring how serious he was about it, and opened a folder. "Yagura and the Three-Tails. His death unbalanced the Daimyo and the Village Hidden in the Mist both, which is the reason they asked to join in on our alliance and we are having the Chuunin Exam here today." A second folder. "Han, Five-Tails; Roushi, Four-Tails, both from Rock Village."

Yagura looked like a sickly pretty-boy, thin like a stick and sad-eyed. Han only showed his eyes, the rest of him armored all over. Roushi was an old man; Naruto had never really imagined himself getting that old. Roushi wasn't going to get any older, now.

"The ones we aren't sure about are the Six and Seven tails. They didn't belong to any village and no one really knows if they were found. No pictures."

So for all they knew, they were dead as well -- or no, no, they must have been used to living without a village (how lonely that must have been) and they were both just fine.

"And both from the Village Hidden in the Clouds, Yugito Nii and Killerbee, Two-Tails and Eight-Tails respectively." Gaara's voice gentled imperceptibly. "Who are officially in hiding. Killerbee is the little brother of the Raikage, and he and Yugito grew up as comrades, so the Raikage takes their protection very seriously."

Naruto blinked, a bit fast. "... That's -- that's good. Must have been nice. I mean, to grow up there." Family that cared. And someone like him. Must have been nice. Almost normal.

He wouldn't have had Konoha or his team if he'd been born elsewhere, though, so hey, it balanced out.

"And then there's me, who cannot hide and who is easily found, and you."

"I don't _want_ to!" Naruto protested at Gaara's expectant look.

"And the Hokage knows that, but some people still think she should make you."

Naruto growled. "Well, I'm glad she knows better."

"Does she? There are rumors that she refused to act on the intel because it came from her old teammate."

Naruto gave him a baffled look, a little insulted on the old hag's behalf. "Uh, what?"

"Orochimaru," Gaara explained patiently. "My analysts believe he knew where to find us all. He must have had a failsafe set up, that sent warnings out to the Jinchuuriki in case he was killed, and was using it as insurance to dissuade the Akatsuki from doing just that. But apparently they killed him anyway, and here we are." He tilted his head. "Do you think she would have ignored a warning from him?"

"I don't think she'd have trusted him to say the sky was blue," Naruto replied slowly, mind reeling just a bit. It almost sounded like the old snake bastard had done a good deed. Hah. Very much accidentally, there. What the hell. "But -- she'd have checked anyway. In case it was true. Because it was about me, and the village."

"Hm."

Gaara stepped around the desk, leaned against the desk in his previous spot next to Naruto. Neither one said a thing for a minute. Naruto was thinking about the other Jinchuuriki.

He wanted to go and save them, but he was too weak for that. It wouldn't have stopped him from trying before. It hurt, that it was stopping him now. But he was too weak to protect his teammates. He'd be nothing but a burden, and then in quick order someone in need of rescue as well.

"I hate that," he whispered. Gaara inclined his head toward him a little. "Being too weak to stop them. To save--"

"Mmh." Another pause. "I don't suppose it would help to tell you that you can't take responsibility for the world."

"It's not the world!" Naruto protested. "It's -- but it doesn't matter anyway because I _can't_ because I _suck_." He kicked at the floor, frustrated.

Gaara fixed him with an unimpressed stare. "So fix it."

"I'm _trying_!" Naruto retorted with a frustrated whine. "Kakashi-sensei won't let us train more than a couple _hours_ a day!"

"So make those hours more efficient." He stared at Naruto, eyes narrowing. "You haven't been working on your demon chakra Rasengan."

Naruto gaped at him. "How do you know that? Are you -- are you _spying_ on me?"

"Of course," Gaara said, and frowned disapprovingly. Naruto spluttered. "Enough to know you haven't touched your demon chakra once since the attack."

With a single push Naruto was off the desk and pacing across the office, furious all over again. "Are you kidding me? Are you -- I'm never using that -- I don't _want_ to! Didn't your spies tell you what he did?!"

He wished he could say he was never using Kyuubi's chakra ever again, but he knew that wasn't possible, that he would have to. But it made him feel dirty.

"I just saw the hospital reports. What _did_ he do?"

The laugh that came out of Naruto's throat didn't sound like his own, sounded angry and a little deranged. Like Kyuubi's laughter mixed with his own. "Oh, nothing -- beat up and tried to _rape_ Sakura-chan, broke her arm with his -- _my_ \-- fucking _teeth_ , savaged a couple guys -- one of them died later -- stabbed a -- a _kid_ , he wasn't a threat, Kyuubi fucking knew he wasn't a threat and he still went and --"

Coming to a stop in the middle of the room, he fell silent, took in a shuddering breath, and another. Gaara watched expressionless from the desk, absently arranging a pile of papers that Naruto's abrupt departure from his seat had shaken loose.

"So basically he acted like a demon beast."

Naruto flinched.

"And you were surprised." Gaara's voice was so dispassionate by then that Naruto could barely believe it came from a living being.

"I thought we were starting to get along! We had compromises -- we talked sometimes -- but he, he would rather take advantage and go ravaging the countryside the second my back is turned--"

"You trusted him, and now you feel betrayed."

"... Yeah, that was kinda stupid, okay, I _know_." Naruto turned away, arms crossed tight across his belly. It really was. He knew what Kyuubi _was_ , he'd always known. He'd just... what, forgotten? Started thinking he was like, like _Sasuke_ , that his 'I want to eat this person's face!' was just special Kyuubi-talk that you could translate into civilized speech, because he didn't really _mean_ it? "Anyway he won't make a fool of me twice. I don't need to talk to him to take his chakra, so I hope he has fun alone in his cage because he's never coming out or seeing me ever again."

Behind him, Gaara sighed. "Voice of experience... That never works." He sounded a little sad; Naruto turned around, his anger forgotten.

"Uh, Gaara? Are you--"

"Granted, my seal and yours are vastly different."

Yeah, Naruto's was better, if by better it meant Kyuubi wasn't leaking in all over the place and making him psychotic.

He just leaked in in more subtle ways, ways that Naruto didn't always catch. Like the growling and the dreams and how he liked red meat more and more these days. Like the sense of smell. Or his eyes, which were hardly subtle at all anymore.

"... How did you, with Shuukaku... I mean, back when we first met, he was kinda..."

"Not looking for a compromise?" Gaara shrugged it off. "We've come to an agreement. He doesn't desire to be yanked out and harvested by Akatsuki any more than I do. It's not a peace treaty so much as armed truce."

Naruto growled under his breath, and then stopped himself; it made a strangled, weird little noise. He never used to _growl_ , damn it. "Yeah, well, Kyuubi's an arrogant bastard. He'd be all 'what do I care, let them yank me out so I can _eat them._ Bwahaha'."

"I seem to remember," Gaara _mused_ , the bastard, "someone who once told me that he would never give up, it was his ninja way. "

It wasn't really a slap in the face, more like one of Sakura's slaps to the back of his head, Naruto you _idiot_. It still stung. He threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "... Argh! You -- No fair quoting me at me!" Aw hell, and now he was whining. He was totally whining. Argh, and another argh! "He's been evil for centuries! I've been alive for eighteen years!"

"So, you think you can't break him of it."

Naruto sputtered. "Well, you don't think you can break Shuukaku of it either!"

"No, I don't," Gaara replied, patient, almost gentle, "but I'm not you."

Naruto's cheeks started heating up. "...Oh."

"Am I wrong?"

Still flustered, Naruto was saved from having to answer by a knock on the door. "Kazekage-sama?"

Gaara's brow furrowed.

"I have to take care of this," he said, with obvious reluctance. Naruto realized that he'd no doubt asked not to be disturbed while Naruto was there unless it was necessary, and felt even more embarrassed. Touched, too, and glad, and like he was being a bit childish. Gaara had gotten so mature, and half the time Naruto himself felt like he was still a teenager, not really an adult yet. Not yet old enough to become Hokage.

"Alright, I'll go. See you later." With his hand on the door handle he turned and gave Gaara a slightly rueful grin. "I'll try," he promised, and then he walked out of the room.

Behind him he could hear Gaara make a "Hm" -- acknowledgement, amusement or both -- and greet his visitor, the words muffled by the closing door. Alright, time to go back to the hotel.

\--

He gave it a try later that night, staring at the ceiling as Sasuke and Sakura slept beside him. He timed himself on their breath, an anchor to meditate by.

The rush of burning hate that greeted him would have singed his eyebrows if it had been anywhere but outside his head. Even by Kyuubi standards it was violent, swallowed everything else. The only meaning he could get apart from that sheer, torturing need to destroy him down to the marrow of his bones was _'out, out,_ _ **out**_ _'_.

"... Okay, whatever," Naruto muttered, "fuck you right back." He turned onto his side and cuddled up to Sasuke, who muttered in his sleep and pushed a pointy elbow in Naruto's stomach.

He wasn't giving up. He'd try another day. A day when he started to forget how much he hated the fox right back.

\--

"Who the hell washed this top?! It doesn't _fit_ anymore!"

Naruto sat up, bleary-eyed and not quite awake yet. "Ngh. Sakura-chan, 's early," he complained. The bedroom was gray with muted dawn light; he could have slept another hour or three. (He could have forced himself up too, but being on light duty and training restrictions was just that boring.)

A pillow landed on his face. He let himself fall back with the light impact, listened to her pace around the small bedroom, tossing the content of her bag all over the foot of the bed.

"Damn it, it's my last clean top--"

" _Sakura_ ," said Sasuke from the doorway, in such a peculiar tone that Naruto immediately pushed the pillow off his face to squint at her.

She was still wearing the top, zipper half-done. Naruto would have been happy to see the upper half open -- a plunging neckline was a nice sight to wake up to.

It was the other way around -- the cloth covered her chest like usual, started straining toward her waist, and then fell open from bellybutton to panties.

"... What?" she asked, frowning in confusion.

Naruto somehow teleported from under the blankets to the edge of the bed. His hands pushed up the bottom halves of her top.

He stared for a few seconds. Then he made an embarrassingly high-pitched noise and wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged, but not too tight, even though he really wanted to.

"Naruto! What the hell--"

Naruto rubbed his cheek against her belly and made a strangled little noise of happiness. Behind him Sasuke sighed like he was trying not to laugh.

"Your other shirts are baggier, aren't they?" Sasuke asked dryly.

"Well -- yes, but --"

"And you always get dressed in the dark."

"It's that or getting dressed in the common room! Where Kakashi-sensei can walk in on -- Naruto, why are you _fondling_ me?"

Naruto tilted his head back and beamed at her. She stared down, utterly baffled.

"Baby bulge, baby bulge, baby in your tummy~"

"... Are you kidding me?"

Sakura put her hand on his forehead and pushed him back; Naruto obligingly loosened his hold, though he left a hand on her hip. She unzipped the rest of the top, letting it fall open, and looked down. Blinked. Stared.

"Are you _kidding_ me?! That's, I was -- last week it didn't even -- what? Last week I needed to lay down if I wanted to see anything -- how, five days ago -- it can't just _appear_ like that!"

"Apparently it can," Sasuke replied just as dryly, and took a cautious step toward them.

Naruto leaned and almost fell out of bed to catch his wrist, and dragged him the rest of the way there. "Feel, feel, isn't it awesome!"

Sakura seemed torn, incredulous and flustered; but in the end she heaved a loud sigh and gave up. She dropped her shirt on the bed, and her hand slipped under Sasuke's hand, to feel the lower curve of her belly. It wasn't huge -- would have looked like a bit of flab if she'd been the flabby type, but she really wasn't.

Naruto had known for so long that there was a baby in there, he could _smell_ the way her scent had changed, all full and spicy and promising, he'd touched her belly and felt the tautness that wasn't merely strong abdominal muscles, but _seeing_ it, that was different.

There was barely enough space for all three of their hands on it. He couldn't stop grinning.

"You really didn't notice?" Sasuke asked with a touch of disbelief, as his thumb rubbed a sneaky little circle against her bellybutton. "Didn't... _feel_ anything?"

"Not really," Sakura muttered, embarrassed. "If I had to get a measuring tape every time I feel bloated..."

Naruto rested his cheek against the curve of her breast. Usually he'd be trying to stare right through her bra but right now he couldn't get his eyes away from her belly.

"Hey, you three! Are you ready to... go yeeet... _I'll be right back_."

Kakashi turned on his heel and started for the open door. Naruto leapt out of bed after him and grabbed the back of his shirt. "Sensei! Touch, touch!"

Kakashi stubbornly refused to turn around, a hand raised to pinch the bridge of his nose, his eye closed. Behind them Sakura was yelping something and Sasuke sighing loudly, again. Naruto turned his head to blink his confusion at them, and...

... Oops. Almost-naked students sorta-groping each other. Aheh. Okay, maybe that explained Kakashi's 'to any god listening, I'd appreciate if you would smite me down right now' face.

"Sorry," he said, laughing nervously, and let go.

Sasuke pulled off his shirt and handed it to Sakura, who hurriedly put it on. Naruto felt a little pinch of jealousy. He should have thought of that first -- then again, since he slept shirtless the only shirt of his in their immediate vicinity was his old dirty one from yesterday and, uh, the day before, which he'd dropped on the floor, and she wasn't gonna want to wear _that_.

She yanked the sleeveless, baggy shirt down to her thighs and laughed a little, nervously. "You can turn around, Sensei."

Kakashi didn't, though he did incline his head toward them in acknowledgement. "I think I'll wait outside. And Naruto, get dressed."

Grumbling, Naruto went to put on pants and a t-shirt over his boxers. Sasuke put another shirt on and waited by the door, watching them. Sakura put on biker shorts, grimacing a little when she had to tug on the waistband to get it where it should be. "Okay, if it keeps digging in like that it's going to get distracting," she muttered. Naruto tried not to grin; he could tell she found it frustrating, but _baby bulge_.

He burst out of the bedroom first, and bounced his way to Kakashi, who was leaning against the edge of the window and looking long-suffering and kinda headachy.

"Sensei, sensei, _baby bulge_!"

"Ah." Kakashi looked at Sakura, who had just emerged. In the lit room it was impossible to miss how hard she was blushing. Adorableness. "...Congratulations?"

Sakura mumbled something that might have been a thank you, and burrowed the lower half of her face in the high collar of Sasuke's shirt.

"Will you be able to train in that?" Kakashi asked after a slightly too-long, awkward second.

"Um. For today, I guess -- and my other tops are a bit looser..."

"That'll only delay the issue by a few days."

Naruto grinned, even though Sakura glared at him for it. More real estate for his hands! He couldn't wait.

Kakashi let out a little sigh. "Well. Since I doubt you planned for that, I suppose we can allot some money from the month's budget to new clothes."

Sakura squealed. "Yes! Water Country fashion!" She bounced on her toes, as if about to pounce on their teacher and hug him. Naruto was sure he was really thankful when she stopped herself and made do with a blinding grin.

"We'll have to make it up somewhere else," he warned, eyeing Sakura warily. "No more fast food. Home cooked stuff only."

Sasuke only shrugged; he liked home-cooked stuff better anyway, and Sakura didn't seem to care, too busy muttering something that sounded like 'hah, take that, Ino'. Naruto laughed at her a bit, and then -- oh. "That doesn't mean ramen ... does it?"

"It's ramen or Sakura going shirtless."

"I don't mind _that_!" Naruto retorted, and drew himself up.

" _I_ do," Sasuke replied, throwing him a sidelong glare. And, well, okay, their Sakura naked for other people to ogle... but still!

Sakura huffed and glared at them both, though at Naruto more. She burrowed in Sasuke's collar some more, as if she had the vague thought that Naruto might attempt to take it off her. " _Hey_. It's not up for debate."

"Okay... Not in public, but in the bedroom?"

"Will you stop being a pervert for two seconds?!"

"I'm not being a pervert! It's -- dude, _baby bulge_! It's not perverted! It's just -- Sasuke, you get it, right?" He turned a pleading look on his teammate. Sasuke sniffed and looked away, the traitor. "Oi, bastard--"

"You know, I've noticed your arm strength could be better," Kakashi mused. "All three of you."

"... Huh?"

He rubbed his chin through his mask, smiled genially. "I think we'll go to the training grounds walking on our hands today."

Naruto and Sakura spluttered; and if Uchihas spluttered Sasuke would have too.

"And by 'we' of course I mean you guys. Hop to it, hop to it!"

"But that's -- down the _street_?" Sakura protested, blushing.

"You're right, it'll be a better workout across rooftops." He waved them toward the door. Team Seven shared a loud sigh and collectively gave in.

This being a ninja outpost, rooftops were pretty much just as busy as the streets, on top of being, well, rooftops. As in, not often flat, and full of story-high, street-wide gaps. When he thought about it, Naruto didn't actually mind. It would be kinda funny. Of course, also potentially very embarrassing.

... then again, that would mean an easily provoked Sasuke for that extra bit of spice in their spars, and two flushed lovers with their hair in disarray. Hmm.

"Gai will be delighted to know you like his training methods so much," Sasuke said like a threat as he stalked by their teacher and out of the suite into the hotel corridor.

Kakashi smiled back a 'nice bit of blackmail, kid'. "He will, won't he. We might as well apply ourselves and start right now to make him truly proud. Go ahead, Sasuke."

Naruto was feeling charitable, so he swung onto his hands a half-second behind him, so Sasuke wouldn't have to be upside down in public all alone. It was kinda funny, the way Sasuke's bangs were swept up, when the back of his hair barely budged. With a long sigh Sakura joined them, frowning a little as she shifted from hand to hand, testing the arm that had been broken. Naruto could only see the back of her head; her back was turned toward Sasuke and him, but she didn't say anything about it, so he concluded that it worked well enough. The bone _was_ supposed to be healed by now, anyway, and, after the cast, a bout of arm strength exercise couldn't hurt.

Kakashi locked the door and turned to face them. "Don't make such faces, children. This is more than just an exercise, it's also good for team-building!"

"Through shared public embarrassment?" Sasuke retorted.

"Yeah, yeah! You're just being a sadist for your own personal amusement, sensei."

"Don't be silly, Naruto. A good ninja knows how to strike several targets with one throw."

Naruto thought about pointing out that they handled the bonding part just fine on their own. Then again, seeing them bonding a bit too much was what had prompted Kakashi's current bout of sadism. ... then again, Kakashi might make another funny face. He opened his mouth.

"Hm, I wonder how far you'd get walking on only two fingers."

Naruto closed his mouth.

"Onward, children. Oh, and Sakura?"

Sakura growled halfheartedly under her breath and craned her neck to look at him. "Yes?"

"Tuck your shirt in."

Naruto spent the rest of the trip to the trying to lag behind enough to catch a glimpse of her stomach. Sasuke wouldn't admit afterwards that he'd only won their spar because of the crick in Naruto's neck.


	12. Chapter 12

"Sixteen participants," Kakashi had told them, one week exactly before the start of the tournament. "The odds of two of you meeting in the first round are slightly under thirty percent."

Of course Sakura had calculated that one already. She hadn't liked the results much.

"Assuming you all meet strangers in the first round, and you all win... The odds rise to forty-three percent in your second match. If you get as far as your third match you _will_ have to fight a teammate." Kakashi had given them a long, sober look. "I think you'll all agree with me that not taking those matches seriously would be somewhat insulting."

By which, she knew, he meant matches against her, because Naruto and Sasuke always fought each other all-out.

She was still annoyed at Naruto for putting on his martyr face before he agreed with their teacher. Kind of made her wish she'd get to fight him at some point, but...

She'd made progress with her speed and strength during the month, come up with strategies to use against her teammates' superior ones. She hadn't come up with a miracle.

 _Not Naruto or Sasuke in the first round_ , she prayed as she stepped out of the lineup to draw her number. _That's all I ask, not Naruto or Sasuke_. The rules of the tournament were the same as back home; winning all your fights didn't mean you were automatically a chuunin. Chuunin was a command rank, if the lowest one; having a good head for tactics, knowing how to use everything you had on hand, and when to cut your losses, also counted for a lot. She wanted at least one chance to impress the judges.

Huh. Number seven. She smiled to herself as she handed the engraved stick to the jounin in charge and he wrote down her name on the big board. It didn't tell her whether she would fight her teammates -- in Water Country they still used the traditional iroha chart, and if you went by that order Haruno came long before either Uchiha or Uzumaki -- but it made her feel a little lucky anyway.

When she turned around to regain her place in the line of waiting contestants she had two seconds to scan them all again.

Three of them she already knew; the rest she hadn't noticed before, but then again they hadn't met many people in the wilderness during the second stage, apart from that annoying kunoichi trio and the people Kyuubi had savaged, and the waiting area for the first stage with the cave and the boulder test had been packed.

Yamanaka Inoru was a bratty little newcomer with a single special technique to his name, and one that was made more for spying than all-out combat; he'd likely gone as far as he could get this year, Ino's efforts to train him up notwithstanding. Hinata's little sister might go farther, for all that she was the same age of barely thirteen, because she would see attacks coming and her Gentle Palm would compensate for her lack of mass and reach.

Sakura had no idea how far Zenko would get.

She still wanted a chance to plant a fist in her face.

Zenko hadn't thrown Naruto a single glance; from the way her eyes glided past him when they were led out into the arena he might as well have been part of the scenery. But the constant background hum of banked killing intent set Sakura's teeth on edge.

She took her place in the line again, matched names with faces and body types and visible weapons. She could tell that a lot of other countries had done what Konoha had with them, if inadvertently; kept teams in reserve especially for this, so they'd have a better chance. No village wanted to make a poor showing of it when it was the first year Mist had ever condescended to participate.

"Psst, Sakura-chan."

Sakura's eye twitched; she kept staring ahead. They were under the eyes and intense scrutiny of about five hundred people, up in the stands; family, teachers, local Mist nin... and three Kages and several Daimyos. She couldn't get away with kicking his leg.

"Sakura-chan!"

" _What_ ," she whispered back. Or growled, either or.

"That chick looks kinda familiar. Where do we know her from?"

Blinking, she looked at the girl now drawing her own lot. About fourteen or fifteen, with short, messy, _electric blue_ hair and a seal (maybe just a tattoo, who knew) dark on her skin, running from her cheek down into her collar, to reappear at her hip. She wasn't exactly low-key; Sakura was sure she would have remembered someone like that...

And then the girl turned to go back to her spot, and caught her looking, and _blushed_. Lightly, but that was unmistakably a blush, what on Earth...

And then she leered at Sakura, blue eyebrows wagging.

"... We don't know her at all and shut up Naruto."

"Sakura-chan? You're all red."

"Shut. _Up_. _Naruto_."

Oh hell, she remembered her now. That was the girl who'd caught Naruto prancing out of Sakura's shower stall in girl shape.

"You sure? Because--"

"Naruto so help me--"

Sasuke's simple " _Hey_ " brought them both to a guilty quiet. The murmurs of the crowd hid quite a bit down there, but she was pretty sure their immediate neighbors would have no problem overhearing them, and good job looking scary there. This really wasn't the impression they wanted to project.

"Uchiha Sasuke," called the jounin in charge, giving them a narrow-eyed warning look.

She watched Sasuke leave the lineup, his back, the line of his shoulders. He'd been quiet, this last week, away from the hotel a lot -- practicing that one secret trick Kakashi had insisted they each come up with to diversify their arsenal against each other, she'd assumed, but even now he was still quiet.

She was sure no one but her had noticed. He wasn't visibly brooding, or scowling more than usual, or snapping all that often. He still flung sarcasm at Naruto when Naruto left him an obvious opening, but... She wasn't sure what to make of it.

When the jounin in charge wrote down his name on the board she forgot about it a little. Brain buzzing, the hair on her arms prickled up, she waited blankly as Naruto trudged up in turn and drew his own lot.

Looked like she would get her wish, and a little more; the gods were merciful. Two matches to impress the judges.

And then on her third match she would come up against Sasuke.

\--

**(Sasuke)**

The first match didn't last five minutes. Mist guy against Lightning guy, Lightning guy much more powerful, hence cocky, and unblooded yet, hence unwilling to just finish things decisively.

What was funny was that Sasuke could tell Mist guy's counterattack had been restrained, as much as it had looked like a total 'I need to kill him before he gets around to beating me down so much I can't get back up'; Lightning guy's legs and arms might be a mess of broken bones and it was going to take him months to even walk again, but no major artery had been shredded so he would die before the medic-nins could even rush in the arena.

And now it was his turn.

He wasn't even looking forward to it much, either this match or the next with the Mist-nin -- Sasuke _was_ ruthless enough to get rid of him fast and hard. He _really_ wasn't looking forward to the match against Sakura. She would take it seriously -- with all the seriousness of their last real fight, and all the resourcefulness it brought up (just maybe less grim desperation) -- so he would, too. He knew (remembered) how much he hated it when he was coddled in a fight, even when hopelessly outclassed; he wasn't going to do that to her, insult her like that.

At least after that he'd go either against Naruto or against someone who had beaten Naruto (improbable at that sounded), so maybe the finale would be interesting. The rest... god, he was so _done_ with this country.

"From the Leaf, Hyuuga Hanabi versus Uchiha Sasuke!"

"Man," said Naruto, standing behind him in the access tunnel, as they watched the girl stalk out ahead. "I know she's a brat but _ouch_."

Sakura sighed from his other side. "Who knows, the Gentle Fist is hard to deal with. Anyway, Sasuke -- she's a Leaf nin as well, so..."

"She's Hinata's little sister!" Naruto corrected her, joking but with a hint of real worry in his voice. "I really don't want to make Hinata cry."

" _You_ won't," Sasuke replied, irritated for some obscure reason. 'Naruto is an idiot' covered it pretty well, though. He followed Hanabi out into the arena.

Thirteen year old. Not short for her age, but not tall either; Sasuke had the advantage of reach. Still skinny, but the Gentle Fist didn't rely on superior mass. Likely very limber. Hair pulled back in a tight tie; difficult to grab, not the brazen challenge of Neji's hair or Hinata's carelessness.

He gave the arena a quick scan, as he waited for the referee to join them. The ground was sloped, with boulders here and there, a few tall as he was, and a pond like a rough crescent moon along the wall, damp muddy ground around it. A couple bushes. No trees.

Cover was useless against a Hyuuga. Mud to mess with their footing, maybe not. He could see the girl throw a sharp glance that way, her brow furrow deeper. He threw it another furtive look himself; if she caught it and got fixated on that strategy it would only make slipping in something else easier.

"Start!"

He couldn't afford to go through the tournament with damage to his chakra coils, but _'she's a Leaf nin as well,_ ' Sakura had reminded him; he could hear the unsaid things underneath. It'd be bad form to humiliate her completely. Possibly bad planning as well; he really ought to keep political enemies to a minimum, and she wasn't going to be thirteen forever. He stood, waited for her to move first. Then again the Gentle Fist was better as a defensive technique...

Hanabi threw a handful of kunai his way. He dodged two, snatched a third out of the air and deflected the last, and then she was on him, aiming for the line of tenketsu in his wrists to stop him shaping seals.

She moved well. She'd have to be a lot faster if she wanted to get him that way, sharingan or no sharingan. He let his eyes go red and started dodging, watching her smooth, practiced movements. There was a bite in them that reminded him of Neji more than any other Hyuuga he'd ever watched fight, a hint of fire.

There were plenty of reasons not to like the Hyuuga clan. There had been something of a rivalry between their clans pre-massacre. (He'd been young and hadn't paid much attention at the time.)

They'd offered to adopt him in when he was orphaned -- just so happened they would get their hands on the sharingan if he said yes, and if this ended the Uchiha for good, that was just a bonus. (They weren't the only ones who'd offered, and objectively speaking Sasuke could see it was an offer that didn't cost much and might have rewarded enormously if he'd caved to self-doubt and loneliness and said yes, but he nevertheless held a faint grudge against all who had tried their luck.)

Hinata used to be in love with Naruto. Naruto found Neji attractive. He liked them both.

(With their eyes closed they looked like family.)

"Haa!"

A wall of raw chakra startled him, straight from her striking palm. It felt like a full-body slap, stinging his skin. He jumped back, accompanying the impact instead of trying to stand his ground, rolled in the air. He landed already shaping katon seals, teeth bared.

(they looked like family Hinata's long hair was glossy and black and straight Hiashi's jawline was his father's they all moved like people who'd lived all their life practicing the traditional gestures)

(there was a Branch cousin who wore his hair in a low ponytail that fell between narrow shoulders and walked all light and cat-footed)

Defeating her faster might have been humiliating, but dragging it on would only be a show of pity, and he wasn't in the mood. He blinded her with fire, and then gathered lightning in his hand, charged the spinning wall of raw chakra she'd pulled up just in time to take on his chidori.

He veered at the last possible second and punched it at the ground.

It splintered under her feet, rock heaving with the shockwave, and she stumbled in the middle of her spin. Sasuke dashed in, forcing his way through her weakened chakra. It stung, whipped at his skin, left welts. His elbow crashed into her temple even as she lashed out; he somersaulted over her extended arm, landed at her back.

Brain shaken, she would have fallen on her own in a second, but in the meantime she was still trying to move, so he shaped his fist so the knuckles of his first two folded fingers stood out and hit her spine between her shoulder blades, hand crackling with lightning.

He didn't need to be a Hyuuga to find the major tenketsu.

He got to the exit as the referee reached ten on his count. Naruto and Sakura were still waiting there; Naruto was wincing, Sakura looked resigned.

"... Congratulations on your first win, Sasuke-kun."

He gave a faint snort. There was nothing to congratulate him about. Hanabi was good even for a Clan-bred and Clan-trained thirteen year old, but she was no Neji either, and Sasuke had five years' experience on her. It had been a foregone conclusion from the start and the sheer waste of time irritated him.

It irritated him even more to know that he might also have insulted her clan a little, that he had planned to keep himself in check and in the end he hadn't.

(Why couldn't he have fought her teammate, the Yamanaka brat? He'd have been even weaker, but he wouldn't have looked so much like --)

"Okay, so. Sakura-chan's staying downstairs cause she'll fight the winner of this one, but I'm gonna sit with Shika in the stands, you coming or staying with her?"

Sasuke almost said no to both straight away. But he...

"Think I'll hit the showers first," he said, managing casual somehow. "Go on ahead, Naruto, I'll try to catch up."

Naruto's mouth relaxed; he gave his arm a friendly slap. "You're not even sweaty! I think your match was even shorter than that first one."

"Not because of her." A shrug. "It's muggy outside."

"Aw, fine, fine, princess."

Naruto turned away, hands tucked behind his head. Sakura lingered. She hesitated, and then opened her mouth to say something Sasuke likely wouldn't like hearing, so he smirked at her and drawled, "Ready for our match, Sakura?"

It was something he would have done with Naruto, never her. He didn't want to fight her, he didn't look forward to it. He would fight seriously anyway, and it wasn't merely obligations and social rules and his teacher's advice that made him not want to insult her like that.

(It was just, the thought that he might get into it and take it too seriously, the soft swell of her belly...)

She flushed, shoulders stiffening, and she lifted her chin, part surprise and part pride, and while the way her eyes narrowed a second later told him she'd noticed the misdirection, she said " _Yes_ " anyway.

He passed her; she turned toward the arena.

Sasuke's casually challenging smirk fell the second no one could see it anymore.

\--

**(Naruto)**

"... ultimately, the Gentle Fist is useless if your opponent's good enough not to allow it to hit. She needs more long-range attacks."

"Mnh. She also needs not to land on Uchiha friggin' Sasuke. Seriously, in any other village he'd be jounin by now, that's just a little bit unbalanced."

"Oi, oi," Naruto protested, but with a smile, as he came up behind Shikamaru and Temari. "Stop flattering him, he'll hear somehow and then he'll get all arrogant. Even _more_ arrogant." Naruto was grinning the grin of someone who liked hearing it anyway, because yeah, his bastard was that cool. He clasped Shikamaru's shoulder in greeting, leaned between the two of them. "What about me? I'd be jounin too, huh? Huh? Maybe even Kage already."

Temari smirked at him, eyes hooded. Shikamaru snorted and shook his head. "You make it way too easy for her, you know."

"Make it easy for Temari to be mean? Pff, she manages fine on her own." He leaned past them, a hand on Shikamaru's shoulder for balance. "Hi, Ino. Hi, uh, Ino's cousin."

Ino gave him a little wave and a smile. The blond kid seated on Ino's other side gave him a sulky glowery look. "It's _Inoru_."

"Geeze, I met you like one time. Okay, Inoru -- now why're you glaring?"

"Your teammate defeated my teammate! ... I should be all pissy at you now, right?"

Naruto snickered, more at the dubious way he'd said it than at the words themselves. Because yeah, even if you didn't get along with your teammate, it seemed right to him that you'd be on their side no matter what.

"And what's this about that guy being like jounin already?! It's _super_ not fair."

"Man, tell me about it," Naruto replied as he jostled himself a seat between Ino and Shika on the stone bench. "Stupid politics."

"It's not _fair_."

Shikamaru sighed in a longsuffering way. "Since when has anything in this world been about fairness? It's not fair to them either, being held back."

The kid drew himself up to protest. Ino huffed out an even longer sigh, and put her hand across the kid's mouth. "Think about it in silence for a minute. Sensei's orders."

"So," Shikamaru said, turning to Naruto, "what do you think of the match-ups?"

"Well, uh, it's great that I won't meet Sasuke until the finals."

"... Uh huh?"

And of course Shikamaru had caught on that there was something else he hadn't said. "It's... not so great that Sasuke will meet Sakura first."

He winced. His first reaction had been relief that he wasn't the one who had to fight her. His second reaction had been _'oh, shit, this'll be messy'_. "But it might not happen! She might... uh."

Ino was _glaring_ at him.

"... Lose one of her two matches first... Aw hell, I really can't hope for that either." Naruto flopped, elbows on his thighs, head hanging.

"You think Sasuke would be hard on her?"

"Hm? Yeah, though there's the..." He held his hands over his belly, following the curve or an imaginary pregnancy. "But not only. When she's cornered she gets pretty vicious."

The look he got from Shikamaru next was disbelieving; Temari's eyes were silently laughing at him, but then again she always was. "And Sasuke _isn't_?"

"Dude." Naruto gave Shikamaru a disbelieving look. "Sasuke might have put a hand through my chest that one time, but at least he's _never_ kneed me in the crotch."

Temari made a snorting sound and Ino went 'pfffft' and turned away, but that didn't really hide her laughter much. Naruto huffed; it was true, damn it!

Shika slumped beside him and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just... Try not to level the arena, okay?"

Ino turned back to him before he could reassure Shikamaru. (Why would he level the arena anyway? ... okay his and Sasuke's matches tended to be hard on the decor, and Sakura's super punches were hardly more gentle. Um. Yeah. But still, the whole arena?)

"Talking about your girlfriend... Where is she right now?"

Naruto almost didn't hear the question, caught in a little gleeful thrill at the word _'girlfriend'_. Sakura-chan _was_ his girlfriend! And people knew it! Bwee. Well okay Ino had to know because Sakura-chan was her best friend, but still, they were in _public_! He tried to tone down his sudden grin, scratched the back of his head for distraction against his heated cheeks. "Oh, uh, she's watching from downstairs, since she's up next."

"Ah, alright. I'll see her after that one, then. And your boyfriend?"

The same thrill of _mine mine mine_ , no need to even use his name, knowing who this referred to...

For approximately a second.

They'd. Uh. Never talked about this with Ino before. Or... kissed before her or anything. Had they?

Ino was smirking the slow, sensual, _toothy_ smile Naruto vaguely remembered seeing in Kyuubi's dreams of his vixens.

"Where's your boyfriend, Naruto-kun?"

Okay. He'd thought he was blushing before? _Now_ he was blushing. Oh, Sasuke was going to kill someone over this getting out. Even if logically it had to come out at some point. Yeah. He was totally going to. And Naruto was the designated target. "He uh Iunno. Showering I think."

Ino smirked wider, rested her hand on his wrist, arched her brow like she was curious about that _oh god she wanted_ _ **details**_ _on the manlove abort abort run away_ _ **gnaw off your hand at the wrist**_ \--

He was lucky; when he jerked up on his feet she let him go, her hand falling with casual innocence. Evil! Sneaky evil! "I. Uh. It's been a while and he's not here yet so he might have drowned or something or maybe someone's bothering him I mean he really should be here by now so I'm gonna. Go. And look for him and. Stuff."

Ino's eyebrows _waggled_.

" _Not for that!_ "

He almost tripped on the bench when he stepped back over it to escape, ears burning from Ino and Temari's laughter. (Even Inoru was snickering, though Naruto would bet he didn't get it entirely.) Oh god, next Ino would actually come out and ask for details -- and gah! Temari'd been around in Sand and on the boat during their trip to here, she'd have some to share! Gack. He couldn't run away fast enough.

"Wait a moment, Naruto," said Shikamaru, and Naruto did, because his voice was quiet and sober and not teasing at all. "I'll walk with you for a bit." Shikamaru got up too, ambled around the bench, nodded toward the stairs. Naruto followed his lead, grateful, but confused too.

"What is it?"

"About Sasuke."

Naruto groaned. "Oh, not you too."

Shikamaru made a face. "Not about _that_." He drew Naruto through the doorway, down half a flight of stairs. "I just wanted to ask how he's been, since last month."

"Uh? He's been fine. We've been training like crazy with Kakashi-sensei, it's not like he could hide an injury that long."

"I didn't mean physically." Shikamaru sighed, gave him a long, piercing look. "Naruto, his brother is obviously a major trigger for him. Remember the last time he dropped by? No one wants a repeat of the Valley of the End incident."

Naruto flinched.

"... I've seen nothing," he replied after a few seconds of thought. Well, the first days -- before the beach -- Sasuke had been really touchy, but they'd _all_ been touchy, it came with coming so close to disaster. After that, he'd been... he'd paid a bit more attention to Naruto, for a little while, as Naruto got over the kid-stabbing issues -- been gentler, when they turned off the lights and he could pretend no one was seeing it happen -- but then they started training again and falling into familiar rhythms, and he hadn't really...

He'd been acting fine. Possibly the _most important person in his whole life_ had dropped by, and Sasuke had made such a major decision as 'I'll choose you guys over him', and then he'd been _acting fine_. How was that not a huge red flag?

How had Naruto not even _wondered_?

"... I've gotta talk to him."

"Oi, Naruto--!"

But Naruto was jumping down the flight of stairs already, turning into the next one. He needed to find Sasuke _now_.


	13. summary of end of fic

Where we last saw our heroes... 

The Kyuubi and then Itachi drama just happened -- Sasuke chose to shield Sakura even though he might die rather than attack Itachi -- big turning point, my new family > my old one. Then there's one month of training and hopefully mastering new jutsu, then the last tournament stage.

(I think by that point I was sick and tired of writing fight scenes for a hundred bazillion chapters, and I had blown the dramatic load early with the Kyuubi+Itachi combo (i came up with these events by asking myself what is the WORST thing that could happen to them and not be lethal and Sakura: get to feel utterly useless, Naruto, lose control and hurt someone with your own hands, and Sasuke: HI NIISAN) and everything that came after that felt anticlimatic, or had to be dragged on even though it should have been resolved for the sake of still having things to resolve before the epilogue like some naruto/sasuke conflict. I couldn't figure out how to fix it, how to re-up the drama levels high enough, and the fight scenes felt like such a chore but not writing them felt like a copout because plot relevant stuff happened in them and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

\--

*Naruto has been refusing to communicate with Kyuubi after he killed this Grass Country dude and almost killed that kid and hurt Sasuke and Sakura   
*Sasuke is still mulling on his decision because Itachi has been his LIFE for so long that even after having decided for sure it still feels weird  
*Sakura is completely GRRR with the need to catch up to them already and her constant worries about the both of them and the way they won't TALK ARGH.

I had Naruto have it pointed out that Sasuke's been acting "normal" even though Itachi, and he thinks it's a HUGE RED FLAG and decides to go running to find him and ask him point blank, and 

*Meanwhile Sakura is fighting a Sand puppeteer dude and neither of them is watching, which she's pretty hurt about because she was sneaky-awesome and she wanted to see if either of them noticed. (basically she figures out his chakra strings on the fly. it's ALL about chakra control, which is playing right into her strengths, after all.)

*Naruto has a fight with some random person who cares, and then there's the return of ZENKO of Team Summon -- that's the bitchy one who summons wolves, she's in a team with amoral prettyboy who summons foxes and who messed it up enough that Kyuubi got free, and their huge healer tank teammate who summons kitties got himself sort of killed by Kyuubi. They met after the second test in the hospital and Zenko showed she was disdainful and not interested, which was good at the time because Sakura would have killed her very dead.

*Zenko / Aokusa (Grass) : they're both from the same country but he throws it because Zenko will maim him if he doesn't and he can tell.

Sakura is frowny as she watches, kind of notices the "throwing it" thing. Also fuck, Naruto'll have to go against Zenko next fight, that's bad. She really doesn't appreciate that, because she knows Zenko leans hard on the side of blaming Naruto because she has to blame SOMEONE and Zenko can't find it in herself to blame either her surviving or dead teammates for accidentally helping Kyuubi get free when they didn't know he was in there, and the random mist guys who finished off her friend were more like a random freak accident that would never have been a problem without Kyuubi/Naruto.

*Yamanaka Inoru / Hyousa (Sand): not that interesting (Inoru doesn't know enough Yamanaka clan techniques), but meanwhile Ino and Sakura are watching and Ino comments on Sakura's new lesbian tendencies. Re: that time Naruto dragged Sasuke into the girls' showers and they got caught and he swanned out in sexy no jutsu and Sakura was left behind in a gaggle of kunoichi to deal with the fallout. Ino's little bratty cousin heard about it and dutifully told Ino all about it, and she is DELIGHTED to discuss it in more detail ohohoho.

Another random match, and then STAGE TWO.

*Sasuke / Asamoya   
Sasuke is still pissed off at Naruto mentioning Itachi so he DESTROYS the poor guy. :(

*Kaido / Sakura : another medic! with wolverine claw weapons. :X he aims for her stomach or tries to use medical jutsu in a way that would hurt her organs, she gets injured a bit, but wins. (Tempted to pull on Kyuubi chakra to end it, she's that angry. He knew she was pregnant and tried to use it against her, that asshole. But then she shakes herself out of it. also manages to take his weapons from him but she can't use the claws, they're too large to fit on her hand, she's sad about it. it would have been too much awesome Sakura i'm sorry .___.)

Sasuke and Naruto are worried about her but they're still pissed at each other so it doesn't resolve jack shit.

*Naruto / Zenko: Kon (fox dude) is in the stands, still badly injured, cold hard stare at team seven. Zenko hate fear, Naruto ;_; (he feels so horrible about killing their teammate, wow, and he was the nicest of the three.)

Zenko and Kon are both vengeful people, though on their own they would have remembered this and looked for an occasion down the road (like srsly YEARS later if necessary) because they already know they can't take Naruto and there are jounin everywhere between the matches. But a Grass Country leader or Danzou-like elder recruited them, they're supposed to discredit the hokage / deprive her of one of her big weapons / put a strain between konoha and suna, but really they're happy to help at this point.

As they're fighting, Kon sneakily tries to summon Kyuubi -- area summonings like he does, which call up any normal animal that's in the vicinity instead of targeting a special animal and teleporting it, are hard to detect. The plan is to get Kyuubi out and about again in the middle of the stadium so that the kages present have no choice but to slaughter him right there before he rampages. 

This time they have no medic nin to force Naruto to sleep, so when fox guy summons Naruto, they're both awake and aware. Kyuubi and Naruto have to start talking again. 

Kyuubi is all RAGE at everyone, naruto and kon and *everyone else*.

Naruto stands unmoving as they talk, red chakra seeping out everywhere but unseeing. Zenko gets him though the heart!!!! (and immediately retreats to the arena wall, not THAT stupid) Ghk. They yank out molten metal, heal over immediately, gonna kill her, gonna -- no they *can't*, Naruto doesn't want to be like that--

Kyuubi doesn't want to become that, I hate you, I hate you, _it's not fun anymore if they can't fight you changed me, *you changed me*_ and (of course he had to prove he hadn't changed at all. hence the kiddie stabbitty) they're hurting the pink bitch (because of the backlash from kyuuchakra, she's in pain) and I *care* what the *fuck* (flashback to the fight and why he was so furious at her) = > Naruto realizes Kyuubi is angry because Naruto's influence is changing him. He doesn't LIKE wanton slaughter anymore! it's not FUN if they can't fight him! He almost wants to LET WEAKLINGS GO??? over half of the evil shit he did to Sakura and the kiddie team during the second stage was basically Kyuubi being OH NO YOU WILL NOT CHANGE ME SEE HOW I AM STILL MYSELF HAHAHA ha ha it's not as fun as i remember somehow .___.

Naruto is still pissed off at him but this time he tops pretty decisively, and he can feel that Kyuubi is confused and lashing out at the things naruto's influence is starting to make him feel and terrified of that time when they'll have merged so much that kyuubi will have ceased to exist, which is the way the seal works in teamworkverse, so... mngh k. (so forgiving naruto why D:) "Oh. ... let's take her out."

(tails become real at the roots, the way he grows real claws and pads and teeth. Five of them. they charge up a Kyuubi chakra rasengan!! oh jesus zenko might have bitten off way more than she can chew here D: D: D:)

(suddenly the irritating constant tugtug call ends (kakashi & sakura found kon)

they're entirely in control and have a pretty good synchronization going on, they can feel/see the Kages watching ready to fight but they only have eyes for zenko and the man in the stands she keeps glancing at for help. kyuubi is the one who's suspicious of that, naruto is the one who asks her who once they have her pinned? Or maybe he just asks her to tell that guy to give it up, konoha is theirs and they'll show anyone who tries for it what a monster is.

Meanwhile Sakura has felt the fox-summoning chakra tug/echo through her own chakra pipeline seal, and she and Kakashi find Kon and manage to stop his seal so he stops messing up the fight. Sakura is INCENSED because after what happened to Naruto because of them and how he was almost broken by the horrible shit Kyuubi did using his body she almost doesn't CARE that their teammate is dead okay no it sucks because she liked him and IF THEY GO AFTER NARUTO AGAIN IT WILL BE THE LAST FUCKING TIME. she is angry enough she doesn't care the dude is in a wheelchair, he's being dangerous to the man she loves and this will NOT FUCKING STAND. (ok one of the men she loves but at this point she is pretty aware that yes it's totally different from her feelings toward Sasuke but YES HE IS HER MAN AAAAAAAAAAAA SHE WILL BITE she just really can't stand it when Naruto gets emotionally hurt and it's so bad it SHOWS, it's just too wrong.) (also kon is a ninja, so wheelchair, whatever.)

So Naruto and Kyuubi stop being distracted by Kon's interference and win the match as cleanly as Naruto can make it (they didnt use the kyuubi rasengan cause uh yeah no there are people in the arena and also zenko would end up in so many chunks. Kyuubi is too disgruntled/sulky/depressed to really push for dismemberment and things. XD;;;) Zenko HATES them for winning so NICELY, tho. Shaking your hand? like *fuck*. but that's the last we see of Team Summons in this fic and probably ever; they tried, they were beaten, they can't try again without being obvious and being thrown to the wolves by their superiors, okay fine let's end it here for now.

So that's the naruto and kyuubi relationship back on tracks, though with a MAJOR setback to work on but at least it's not totally stalled at the NOPE FUCK YOU station any longer and after spending a month in the dark and starting to accept that yes after centuries of being an inchangeable monument of hate and chaotic destruction he IS evolving, Kyuubi is ready to cooperate more. he got used to using naruto's senses and chatting it up okay!!! XD

*Hyousa / Kasumi  
Naruto _should,_ because he'll be fighting one of them in the third stage, but he's not really watching because he's talking with team seven (maybe just kakashi idk depends) about Kyuubi. The consensus is a lot of "huh." 

At some point before stage three but idk when sasuke and sakura have this conversation (without naruto around cause he'd make it way more confrontational XD):

Saku: Sasuke... are you okay?  
Sasu: ...?  
Saku: *frowns a little. She caught him brooding and they both know it* You know, I'm still angry at you. (she means about him using his body to shield her from itachi, and she's using it to mean YOU STILL OWE ME)  
Sasu: ... I'm fine.  
Saku: *narrows her eyes, then decides to try another angle* I haven't been saying anything -- you didn't seem to want it -- but you haven't been alright for a while now. I worry anyway.  
Sasu: ... when have I ever been fine? *explosive sigh* I can deal, Sakura.  
Saku: Deal with what? *soft, persuasive voice* Tell me what you're thinking about.  
Sasu: *a little annoyed at being nagged* Just stuff. Various things.  
Saku: *doesn't say anything*  
Sasu: ... it'd be easier with the baby, if we knew which of us is the father. *quiet, not looking at her* even if it wasn't me -- I'd rather know.   
Saku: Oh. *aware that he's using this as a misdirection over other issues, but this pain is real enough. But her pain...* ... if I hadn't been pregnant, would you still have done that?  
Sasu: *blink*  
Saku: that thing I'm angry at you about. *hard glare*  
Sasu: Shielding you? *taken aback, hesitates* .. I don't know. *--no, shit* Sakura -- wait. If you'd never gotten pregnant. I don't know. I didn't -- want to let -- the two of you -- I didn't want that. *slightly agitated glare/avoidance* But if. If you lost the child -- you, as you are now, I. *goddamn it, goddamn it, it's so hard to say*   
Saku: *cups his face in her hands and draws him close, to hide in her neck* ... shh, it's okay, you don't have to...  
Sasu: *whispers* yes.  
Saku: *... goes teary-eyed, hugs, eyes closed* *after a little bit* Ah -- I don't think we ever discussed this, but I always meant ... if the baby isn't... yours, or his... her next sibling would be. I thought that was so evident I didn't need to say it, but-  
Sasu: yeah. I knew that. But. Mnhh. *nice to hear, he means*

and then they huggle. u.u~

**STAGE 3**  
  
Sasuke / Sakura: they go a few rounds and Sakura shows off her PUNCHES OF DEATH some (way more fine control now! any part of her body with almost zero notice) and then her HEY SURPRISE CHAKRA STRINGS SEE YOU SHOULDA WATCHED MY MATCH, and Sasuke shows off his new cat summons (he got the scroll as payment for helping kon and zenko so they wouldn't feel indebted to him and then he was like the fuck do i do with that... oh why not kakashi said figure out a new attack no one'll figure out this one) haha look at that -- basically trying not to use the devastating skills straight away, but it's still a pretty technical and precise fight and they're both planning things way in advance with counterstrikes and I KNEW YOU'D DO THAT HAVE A TRAP IN THE FACE. It's the kind of fight you can only have with someone who you have observed and studied and analyzed in almost obsessive detail. XD eventually sasuke catches himself being NOT super tense anymore over accidentally catching sakura in the stomach and even finding it *fun*??? D; it's not fun in the same way as naruto and UNBRIDLED VIOLENCE but it makes for a srs workout for his brain.

When her lower endurance (much better than it was, but she will never be a bred-for-war fightmachine that way) catches up with her, Sakura eventually ends the fight, because Sasuke would win if he fought normally -- like okay if he was more serious with his fire jutsu? Nope, roasted Sakura. :/ (...or if she had put poison on one of her kunai or used healing chakra to fuck up his organs, buuuuut nope. it would only have worked precisely because he would never expect her to actually try to assassinate him, anyways.) She's satisfied, she wanted to prove she fought well and he took her seriously and respected her, and she might be starting to understand how fighting as a mark of positive emotions works for Sasuke on a more than academic level too.

She ends the fight via launching a last totally unexpected ALL OR NOTHING attack à la naruto and then he ... predictably knocks her on her ass and pins her down with his foot and then he's like "... where's the counter attack" and staring down at her because she's sprawled in the dust and GIGGLING, and she's like LMAO you win XDDD i have bruises oh my buises oh lord. and then he's like "but we could have lasted longer" and she's like "but you still have your fight with naruto after me and he's going to whine if i exhaust you and I REALLY WANT THE TWO OF YOU TO FIX YOUR GRUMPIES SO STAY IN THAT ARENA UNTIL ITS DONE K i love you *Sakura out* 

(she might have to explain her reasoning to judge afterward -- though that part was inspired by edenfalling's Guardian where an OC explained her reasoning to a judge before he judged it acceptable. Basically goes : "I'm pregnant. Even if i get to be made a chuunin, I'll have to waste months getting back into shape and won't be able to act as a chuunin straight away. Might as well let him win and have one more chance to prove himself and become a chuunin because I won't be able to get the good missions and provide for our kid for a while yet. We're a team. I have to think of the good of the whole team." What, sentimentality? OFFENDED they could suggest it.)

Naruto spends the whole match cheering for Sakura (he's still ksst at Sasuke some, but mostly by pig headedness now) yelling brawly advice and teasing BOOO when Sasuke has the upper hand and being all LOOK AT MY ~~LOV~~ TEAMMATES THEY ARE COOL I LIKE MY TEAMMATES to the point where everyone around him in the stands is like... can't he sit down and be quiet and shikamaru is all DESPAIR and Ino is giggling her ass off. Temari laughs too but ends up sitting him down and putting her war fan on his head menacingly XD

*Naruto / Kasumi : (still hammering things out with Kyuubi, dealing with augmented senses and trying to calibrate their chakra output, but he wins anyway with ridiculous ease. Sakura laughs at him but then cheers anyway when he preens.)

**FINAL MATCH**  
  
"You can take a break if you want to, gaiz -- no? well okay then."

Naruto / Sasuke: yay. This is basically ninja porn, and the actors are having FUN and everyone can see it -- but they stop and concede to each other at pretty much the same moment because dude, the arena is not taking its beating like a man. XD they'd be endangering the spectators if this went on and they showed off enough for the judges to decide anyway.

they were using the fight to get out their fears and frustration and SHITFUCKHATE at kyuu/ita ;è.é; as always with them, once they beat each other up all is well and forgiven once again and they're reassured that the other dude is back in a stable and strong frame of mind and ready to TAKE ON THE WORLD.

(the last people who didn't yet know they were fucking know it afterwards, though, because the way they fight has "showing off for someone i want in bed" written all over it. -___-;; only a civilian would miss it.)

Spoiler: They all get to be chuunin.

Also two days later on the way back they almost sink Gaara's boat having a three-way rematch and Kankuro kicks Naruto and Sakura off the boat to swim it off and he doesn't quite dare kick Sasuke but Sasuke shrugs and jumps in after them and there might possibly be some groping involved under water level. >_>;;;;;;;; after that they jog on the waves after the boat for a while as light exercise and kakashi is all "... ahh, children" and quit determinedly does not find them adorable and terrible.

\--

Then there was supposed to be a Teamwork 4 where the baby was ACTUALLY BORN  
and also where they met other jinchuuriki  
and akatsuki decided to start moving.   


it was not planned in depth, i mostly had cool scenes floating here and there and was still working on tying them all together properly. plus the justification for some things was not convincing me yet and i wasn't done finding really good reasons for some things that i really wanted to happen to actually happen.

Spoiler: the first kid is Sasuke's. Naruto thinks that means this is the IDEAL TIME to fade out and let them be normal, since they've been living in the village and dealing with lots of surprise politics because of Sasuke reclaiming his clan leader position which means he has to deal with other clan leaders, which means people are seriously side-eyeing his wife being too intimate with some other dude.

so then he's like "well i'm free to go see what akatsuki is up to and free my demon bearer brethren, if any are left" and offers himself up as bait for a mission, then serious shit happens and he gets kidnapped. sasuke and sakura are like HAHAHA NO and demand to be on the rescue mission with like half their friends or maybe all of them idk.(baby stays w/ grandparents. it's super hard on sakura but she figures they'll need a combat medic and anyone can give the baby his bottle.)  


on his side naruto has managed to free himself and yugito and maybe four tails old guy who wasn't dead as reported and they cause some havoc but have a hard time escaping, so it's a relief when the rescue blazes in. 

at some point sasuke summons the two-tailed demon cat. kisame temporarily helps them because he was being kept around in case akatsuki needed his ridiculously huge chakra reserves to substitute for a missing demon and he's not too keen on dying for the cause. kurenai dies. more stuff happens. Itachi gets killed. (or fakes his death, idek.)

anyway end of fic 4 naruto is back home and akatsuki has disbanded. \o/ and they have a newborn son that they force naruto to bond with and be like "oh yeah he SCREAMS oh no yours will be totally better we're sure eyeroll eyeroll cuddle" and everything is happiness once again.

and now i shall post some of the oneshots i've written that happen after that period in time.


End file.
